


Don's Guide to the Galaxy

by FirebirdScratches, turtlesketches



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2003), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, F/M, Space Opera, space western?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2018-09-01 06:45:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8613412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FirebirdScratches/pseuds/FirebirdScratches, https://archiveofourown.org/users/turtlesketches/pseuds/turtlesketches
Summary: Trying to evade the Triceraton Empire, the brothers get literally "lost in space," barely escaping with their lives. Now Don is determined to find his family again - with the help of a beautiful stranger.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [turtlesketches](https://archiveofourown.org/users/turtlesketches/gifts).



> This Space AU concept is the brainchild of turtlesketches, who was kind enough to commission me to bring it to fruition. I've had so much fun writing it, it kind of feels like highway robbery. Which is fitting, I guess! She's also responsible for the beautiful artwork, of course. Enjoy the ride. :)

Raph crawled painfully to his knees and from there, stumbled to his feet. The unique pink sand was scorching hot under his feet, but he paid it no mind, staggering forward until he finally reached the rock he had been aiming for. Leaning on it heavily, he gingerly sat his bare ass on the hot surface, wincing at first, and then sinking into the heat it had accrued during the day.

He checked his breather, and then slowly ran a mental diagnostic, surveying his body for injury. Lots of bumps and bruises - definitely would be stiff for days - and blood and sweat were stinging his right eye from the cut above his forehead. He pawed it away absent mindedly. It could have been worse - at least it seemed nothing was broken.

Buck naked, without even his pads, leathers, or his sai, he stared at the broad expanse of pink nothing around him, the smoldering remains of the escape pod behind him sending pitiful plumes of smoke up into the hazy atmosphere.

“Well,” he announced ruefully to no one. _“That_ went well.”

**_Six months earlier_ **

“Got about 900 million miles on ‘er. So she’s been around the block a few. I’d say her warp days are behind her, but she’ll get ya from here to there.”

“Air tight?”

“Oh sure, she’s space-worthy. Heat works, water and air filtration, grav-drive n’all that.”

“Sweet! Are there laser cannons?! _Ow!”_

“What my brother _meant_ to ask is…are there any weapon systems on board?”

The trader stopped in his tracks and turned to examine them with a shrewd eye…his only one, as it turned out. He was short and squat, with wrinkled blue skin that looked like old leather left out in the sun too long. He scratched an imaginary itch in his stubble thoughtfully.

“Now why would a cargo ship need weapons?” he asked casually.

“No reason,” Leo said smoothly.

“Asteroids. Space debris,” Donatello supplied nervously, prodding his fingers together. “They, uh…could even be used as emergency propulsion? I mean…in a pinch?”

The trader regarded Donatello and then looked back at Leo with a dubious expression.

“We just want to know everything about the ship, that’s all,” Leo added firmly.

Raph gave a stern glare and subtle shake of his head to Mikey, who had the good grace to look cowed.

“‘Cause of course…selling a gunship to non-Empire aliens would be… _highly_ illegal,” the ship trader drawled, folding his arms and leaning against the wall of the ship. “Which is why I only sell _cargo_ ships. Now…” He spread his hands and gave an exaggerated shrug. “If you folks wanted to install some weapons after the sale…Well, I guess there’s nothing I could do to stop you. Though it does make me curious as to just what it is you’re hauling…and why you need it in such a hurry.”

“Who says we’re in a hurry?” Leo returned, coolly. “Please, continue.”

“Can we see the engine room?” Don asked meekly.

“Sure,” the trader said. “This way, it’s past the galley and down a hatch.”

He and Don followed the guy off.

Immediately Raph punched Mikey hard on the arm.

“Owww!”

“Keep yer mouth - ”

“Shut! I know! _Geeze_ , you didn’t have to hit so _hard,”_ Mike whined.

“We’re supposed to be keepin’ a low profile,” Raph growled. “We don’t wanna look suspicious!”

“Dude, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re on the wrong side of the space-tracks here,” Mike whispered back hotly. “This guy’s _obviously_ super sketch.”

“Yeah? Well according to the Triceraton Empire, so are we, numb nuts. So keep it zipped!”

Mikey threw a mock salute. “Sir, yes sir!”

Raph raised a fist -

“Not the face!” Mikey cowered with a little yelp.

Pointing at his eyes, and then at Mike, Raph muscled his way past him and followed the sound of the trader’s drawling voice until they caught up.

“So you got yer basic gyro and navi here, propulsion, burners are here if you haven’t got an assist, but…any planet worth landing on has a grav elevator,” the trader was rattling off, pointing at various knobs, levers, machinery, and rat’s nests of wires as he spoke. “Warp is technically still good, buuuut…she hadn’t warped in a while. Like I said, I’m pretty sure the stabilizer’s shot, but…that’s reflected in the price. Food synth’s gone, too, you’re gonna need to replace it or stock provisions if you’re gonna be out more’n a couple days. And she’s gonna need new landing feet pretty soon. They been repaired once before, so how long they last depends on what yer haulin’ and how easy you set ‘er down, but…you’ll need ‘em sooner rather than later. But like I said, heat, grav, H-two, O-two, yer all green. Err, so to speak,” he added, nodding at them with a smirk.

Don nodded thoughtfully,  one finger on his chin. Leo watched Don’s face, rather than the trader’s. The trader cleared his throat.

“So…we got a sale?”

“We’ll need a minute to discuss it,” Leo said.

“Sure, sure. But don’t take _too_ long,” the trader said, climbing back up the ladder and passing Raph and Mike. “I got a nice young couple comin’ to take a look at four E.T.”

“E.T. phone home,” Mike whispered in a raspy voice. Raph elbowed him sharply.

“That’s ‘Empire Time,’” the trader said slowly and clearly, giving Mike a warm, patronizing smile. He caught Raph’s eye.

“He a little?…y’know.” He tapped his temple. “Funny?”

“You have no idea,” Raph muttered, folding his arms.

“Welp. I’ll be waitin’ outside. You all talk it over.”

Raph waited until he heard the footsteps of the blue figure recede entirely and then leapt down into the engine hatch, followed shortly by Mike.

“Well?” Leo said, looking at Don.

Don turned to meet all of their inquisitive stares anxiously.

“Why’s everyone looking at me?!”

“Because you’re the resident nerd,” Raph replied.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Don snapped, sounding anything but. “I’m just curious - exactly how ‘smart’ do you think I am?! ‘Kicks your ass at Scrabble’ smart? Or ‘Learns how to operate an alien spacecraft at a single glance’ smart?!”

“Well, hopefully the _second,_ Donnie,” Leo returned. “That would be a lot more useful in this _particular_ situation.”

“Wonderful!” Don snarled. “Anything _else_ I can do for you?”

“You could lose the attitude,” Leo hissed, jabbing a finger on his plastron.

_“Attitude?!”_ Don cried.

“Okay,” Mike said, holding his hands up. “Maybe let’s all just take a breath, and - ”

“And you!” Leo said, rounding to face him. “Mr. Laser Cannons!”

“Hey!” Mike whined. “Raph already hit me for that!”

“Well if Raph hitting you had any effect on your judgment, you’d be way less of a liability by now,” Leo snapped.

“Hey!” Don said, giving Leo’s shoulder a push. “Leave him alone! _He’s_ not the one who got us stuck on this backwater rock!”

“Oh, so I guess I am?” Leo cried, throwing his hands in the air. “I’m responsible for the _entire_ Triceraton Empire, now?”

“I never said - ”

“Don - can you fly the thing or not?”

Don sighed, ran a hand over his head, and looked around the engine room again. They all watched him in intense silence.

“I…no,” he finally admitted, shaking his head.

They all sagged in disappointment, the air seeming to go out of the room.

“Okay. Fine. So we make another plan,” Leo sighed.

“Like _what?”_ Raph snorted. “We all know this is the only bucket in our price range.”

“I don’t _know,_ Raph. Okay?” Leo groaned, mopping a hand over his face. “Maybe we…”

He stared into space for a moment and then shook his head.

“I dunno.”

They all examined their feet.

“I’m sorry,” Don said miserably. “If I only - ”

“No, _I’m_ sorry,” Leo said, putting a hand on Donnie’s shoulder. “That wasn’t fair of me to ask.”  

“It’s _space_ , Leo,” Don said, fidgeting and wringing his hands together again. “I mean, the controls in the cockpit seem simple enough, but…one thing goes wrong, and we’re all _dead_. There’s no ‘do-overs’ in space. Without knowing how all this works, without knowing how to fix it on the fly, I just…I don’t want to gamble with our lives up there, and that’s what we’d be doing.”

“I might be able to help with that.”

The four brothers froze, looking at each other and around the cramped room for the source of the voice.

“Over here.”

They looked up at the hatchway. A round, brownish-gray face with dimples peered down on them with shiny yellow eyes.

“Excuse me?” Leo asked, dumbfounded.

“I think I can help you with that. Name’s Klaxor. I’m the ship’s mechanic. ‘Scuse me.”

She lurched forward and tumbled down into the hatch. They all reached their hands out instinctively to catch her, but she landed with a comfortable “thump” on the engine room floor, and hitched the shoulder of her overalls back up. She was stout, with a little round belly, and only came up to Mikey’s hip. She stuck a hand out towards Leo, and bemused, he shook it.

“I’m s’posed to be spying on you,” she informed with a friendly, conspiratorial grin. “Seeing how much we can jack the price up. Melbin’s a real penis.”

Mikey let out an abrupt bark of laughter.  

“Sorry,” she said, tapping the collar around her neck that they all wore. “Is that not translating right?”

“We get the idea,” Leo said stiffly. “So. Why are you telling us this?”

“Like I said, Melbin’s a penis. My last couple of pay cycles came up short. Plus, he’s kind of racist. Always making cracks about Blerfids. My people,” she added by way of explanation. “Oh! And there’s nothing wrong with the stabilizer. All it needs is a new Zenturion crystal and a particle filter, he’s just too cheap to fix it.”

“Again,” Leo said. “Why tell us this?”

“Well,” Klaxor said, toeing the grating beneath her feet. “I was kinda hopin’…I could tag along?”

At their silence, she hastily added: “I don’t eat much! Hardly anything, really. And I know this ship inside and out! Plus…”

She put her hands on her hips and tried to straighten up a little taller.

“Way you talk about the Triceratons…I figure you’re not hauling anything. I figure you’re fugitives, just looking for a non-Empire ship to break atmo and rabbit. I got no love for the Triceratons either. You wanna leave, I wanna leave, you’re buying a ship, I can teach you how it works _and_ how to fly it. Way I see it, we’re just a bunch of folks, doing each other a favor.”

The brothers looked into each other’s eyes nervously.

“Collars,” Leo said.

The four of them hit the button on their translating collars, and the glowing blue circle went dark. They gathered into a huddle, and put their heads together.

“I trust her,” Donnie said immediately.

“Of course you do,” Raph drawled. “You like everybody with a wrench in their pocket.”

_“You_ I could take or leave,” Don returned sweetly. Mike snorted.

“This is the only ship we can afford,” Leo stated flatly. “This person knows how it works and how to fly it. Our other option is to hide here, try to avoid detection, maybe bribe our way onto a passenger ship  - ”

“No. No good,” Raph interrupted, shaking his head. “You saw what the spaceport was like. It’s crawling with them. No way we forge our papers, make it through security unrecognized, and - ”

“Like I said,” Leo said. “These are the options.”

“Klunk,” Mikey said.

They all turned to stare at him.

“We can name it Klunk!”

“We’re not naming the ship after your _cat.”_

“You never let me have any fun!”

“So we’re agreed?” Leo prompted.

The others nodded solemnly.

“Oh good!”

They looked up at Klaxor who was watching them all attentively.

“You…speak English?” Leo asked weakly.

“Oh, I kind of speak everything,” Klaxor laughed lightly, with a wave of her hand. “Blerfids are highly empathic. We can understand your intent, even if we don’t get every word.”

“Okay,” Leo said wearily. “Good to know.”

“Sweet! Let’s get this little old lady in the sky!”

Klaxor began leaping around the room, pulling levers, hitting buttons, and slowly grinding the ship to life.

“Um,” Mikey said pointing at the hatchway. “We have to go pay.”

Klaxor laughed lightly.

“Nah. After all, you’re already fugitives from the law, right?”

She threw all her weight into a huge lever, and they could hear the main hatch grinding shut, along with the alarmed shouts of Melbin the trader.

“Uhhhh,” Leo said, “Klaxor was it? I’m not sure if - ”

“Might wanna hang on to something!”

With a sudden roar and a lurch, they were off the ground. Raph’s ears popped and he instinctively threw an arm around Mikey and hung on to the ladder with all his strength.

“Woo-hoo! She’s still got some kick in her burners, huh?” Klaxor hollered over the din.

“Isn’t Melbin going to report the theft?” Leo asked, squatting awkwardly to maintain his balance as he carefully staggered around looking for something safe to hold on to.

“That’s the nice thing about stealing from thieves,” Klaxor returned cheerfully. “They don’t get the law involved. ‘Sides, we’re gonna need all our money at the next port for fuel and provisions. Oo, and weapons!”

“Our money?” Raph echoed dubiously.

“Anyway, frell Melbin, he’s a penis,” Klaxor said, whacking one of the pipes with her wrench, which let out a disgruntled hiss in reply. “So! Guess we better get up to the cockpit before we hit somethin’, huh?”

She scurried up the ladder, leaving them to gape at one another.

“I call Pilot,” Donnie said, finally breaking the silence and scrambling up the ladder.

“Captain,” Raph and Leo said at the same time. Leo gave him a wry smirk and wagged his finger. Raph just rolled his eyes.

“Fine. I’ll just mutiny later.”

“Why not,” Leo said, climbing the ladder. “You mutiny all the time.”

“Yarrrr! And I’ll be ship’s cook and First Mate and all the other shippy ship things! Hoist the mizzen mast! Swab the poop deck! Oh hey, that reminds me, where’s the potty on this thing? I gotta go.”

“Shoulda gone before we left,” Raph chided, smirking to himself.

  
Well. That was _one_ way to buy a spaceship.

 

 ["I can help with that" ](http://imageshack.com/a/img924/8854/kzyBIA.png)


	2. Chapter 2

**_One Week Ago_ **

“Why did they bring this…Gilligan…along?” 

“Well, he was the First Mate.”

“Whose mate?”

“No, like…he was part of the crew.”

“That’s my point, though. If his constant bumbling caused problems for everyone, why did they select him for the crew?”

“I don’t?…uh…it’s just a show?” Mike replied, hitting pause and looking up from his Game Dude. “You can’t really…examine it too closely, or you poke holes in the whole thing and it isn’t fun anymore. Besides, I bumble pretty often and they still keep me around. Someone has to be the comic relief.” 

“The comic…relief?” Klaxor repeated, pausing in her work to wipe grease onto her pants.

“Y’know,” Mike said. He put the Game Dude down on his chest, leaned further back into Klaxor’s hammock and put his hands behind his head. “He tells jokes and keeps everyone’s spirits up…the funny, likable one.” 

“Mikey, you’re not the comic relief,” Don chastised affectionately from his place at the ladder. He resumed watching Klaxor make repairs with the familiar expression of intense fascination he got whenever he was “downloading” information.

“Donatello’s right,” Klaxor added with a wicked smirk. “You’re not likable  _ or _ funny.” 

_ “Ohhhh!” _ Don and Mike chorused together.

“Sick burrrrrn,” Mike grinned, reaching a leg out and trying to nudge Klaxor’s face with his toe. “Meee- _ yow!” _

She batted it away with a giggle. “Enjoying my bunk?”

“It’s okay,” Mike sighed, scooting a little lower and allowing his kicking leg to dangle where it dropped. 

“If you rip it - ”

“I’m not gonna rip it. How’s the thingie-doober?” 

“Repaired,” Klaxor announced, closing the hatch again with a definitive and satisfying chunk. 

“Thanks, Klaxor,” Don said. 

“Need me to explain anything?” 

“Nah,” Don smiled. “I think I got it.” 

“So which one was the Zenturion crystal exhaust?” 

“Third pipe from the left,” Don pointed promptly through the recently-closed hatch door. “And the filter is underneath and to the right of it, below the lubricant line.” 

“Heh,” Mike said, swinging himself in Klaxor’s hammock by rocking his toe against the floor. “Lube.” 

“Well, lesson concluded then,” Klaxor announced. “Or are you two going to hide down here some more?” 

Don and Mike made uncomfortable eye contact. 

“Seems like somebody ought to be flying the ship?” Klaxor prompted. 

“Space is big,” Don shrugged. “The odds of us running into anything or anyone are literally astronomical.” 

“Heh. ‘Astronomical.’ I see what you did there,” Mike replied. 

“Is this how you solve your problems on Earth?” 

“When the problem is Leo and Raph fighting?” Mike replied, arching his brow. “Yeah, pretty much.” 

“Usually there’s more snacks involved.” 

“Oh my gawwwwwd I would murder somebody for a bag of pork rinds,” Mikey moaned. 

“Oh yeah?” Klaxor returned slyly. “Well, I would kill ten persons for a fresh snorp pod.” 

“Well I would murder twenty Blerfids for a hot, cheesy slice of pizza with everything on it.” 

“I would murder  _ forty _ Earthlings for a - ”

“Alright, alright, we’re hungry. Mike, what’s on the menu tonight?” 

Mikey rolled out of Klaxor’s hammock and made an elegant pinching gesture in the air. 

“Tonight zee menu will be…lightly seared protein paste wiss a side deesh of protein paste, and an artisinal blend of hand-crafted protein paste.”

“Blech,” Don grumbled. 

“If you Earth people ate less, we’d still have real food left.” 

“Says the Blerfid who barely eats.” 

She shrugged. “Not my fault my digestive system is way more efficient than yours.” 

“Hey,” Mike teased. “Can you do this?” He reached up and touched the ceiling with an outstretched finger. “Ta-daaaaa!”

Klaxor folded her arms and shook her head, half scowling, half smirking. 

Don sighed and looked up the ladder. “Well. I can hear the water running. I guess they stopped fighting and Raph went off to take a shower.” 

“Ugh. I don’t care how ‘filtered’ it is, it’s still gross to think that we’re drinking Raph’s shower water.” 

“Just a few more TEDs until we hit the next port,” Klaxor said, giving Mike a reassuring pat on the shell. “Then we can - ”

But what they could, they never found out, because suddenly, a loud alarm tone began repeating rhythmically throughout the ship. They stared at each other in perfect wide-eyed silence. 

“What the hell is that?” Leo’s voice rang out warningly from above. 

“I think…we’re being hailed?” Don announced, scrambling up the ladder. “Who would be hailing us?! We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

Moments later, they spilled into the cockpit to find Leo already there.

“Nobody was flying the ship?” he accused. 

“Nobody gets how  _ big _ space is,” Don mumbled, hastily shuffling past Leo and taking his seat. “I was fixing engine stuff with Klaxor.” He flicked a few switches and picked up a receiver. 

“This is the cargo ship Tang Shen, bound for the moon of…of…” Don trailed off, jabbing a finger at the star map. 

“Ghittrakhaneue Four.” 

“What she said. Um…can we…help you?”

There was a brief moment of static, and then:

_ “Turtles.” _

They all looked instinctively to Leo, who blanched visibly. 

“This is Captain Mozar, of the Triceraton Empire.” 

“How did they find us?!” 

“Frelling Melbin,” Klaxor spat, like a curse word. “I hope they tortured him for it, the little - ”

“We get it, frell Melbin, Melbin’s a penis,” Leo snapped, grabbed the intercom out of Don’s hands and hitting the button. 

“This is Captain Kirk speaking, we don’t have any - what did you say? ‘Turtles?’ Are you sure you have the right ship?” 

“I have  _ nothing!” _ Don hissed, gesturing helplessly at the instrument panel. “Nothing on screen, nothing on sonar, they could be anywhere, I have  _ no _ idea where they - ”

“Fire on my command,” Mozar’s voice drawled over the intercom.

“Fire?!” Mike yelped.

“Nooooo,” Don breathed, his eyes going wide, as the screen in front of him suddenly began lighting up with green blip after green blip. “It’s an entire battalion, they must have some kind of cloaking dev - ”

“Fire.” 

They were all jerked sideways as a huge shuddering impact shrieked through the ship’s metal hull, knocking them off their feet. As they bounced off the walls, there was a deep, sinking whine, and instead of collapsing to the floor, they began to float and collide with one another. 

“They knocked out the gravity!” 

“YES, THANK YOU MIKEY!” 

_ “GAAAH!”  _

They all registered Raph’s wounded bellow from halfway down the ship. 

“Notgoodnotgoodnotgood,” Don chanted, swimming his way back to the control panel. 

“That was your first and only warning shot,” Mozar’s voice crackled over the damaged comm system. “Decelerate immediately and prepare to be boarded.” 

“Donnie,” Leo said, the name a simple order. 

“We’ve got warning lights on ten different systems,” Don groaned, flicking switches. “Grav is obviously down, navi is down, we’re venting atmo from the cargo hold, um…ummmm…”

“Can we jump?”

“Jump?!” Klaxor and Mike yelped. 

“Did you hear me say the navi is down?!” Don snapped.

“Can. We. Jump?” 

“We could end up in the middle of a star, or - ”

_ “Donnie!”  _

“Oh geeze,” Don groaned. “Everybody strap in.”

“I highly advise against this course of - 

“Noted,” Leo snapped, interrupting Klaxor. “Emergency stations, everyone.” 

With a loud wrench, the door to the cockpit opened to reveal a soaking wet Raph, floating awkwardly, surrounded by shivering orbs of water. 

“What. In. The.  _ FUCK?!” _ he greeted sourly.

“Oh hi, Raph,” Don greeted dryly. “We’re under attack.” 

“I was in the  _ SHOWER!”  _

“Okay??” Don said, twisting in his chair to fix Raph with a look. “Should I tell them to come back later?” 

Another shuddering impact hit the ship and a loud whooping siren began to sound.

“NOW, PLEASE!” Leo hollered to be heard.

Mike grabbed Klaxor and strapped her into the nearest seat. 

“Raphie, we need to use the ones in -

“ - the galley, I know,” Raph groused, already pulling himself down the hall.

“Coordinates?!” Don cried. 

Another impact hit the ship, and a hairline crack began to spider down the window, looking for all the world like a crack in the stars. They watched its progress with horror. 

“SOMEWHERE NOT HERE,” Leo hollered, buckling himself into a seat. 

“GOT IT.”

Don flipped open a plastic lid, turned the key inside, and mashed his palm against the large red button, and - 

Nothing.

He mashed his palm against it a few more times.

“What the hell,” Don hissed. “What the hell whatthehell no no no no come ON - ”

“The Zenturion Crystal!” Klaxor cried, unbuckling herself and pushing off for the door. “It must have gotten knocked loose in the impact!” 

“How long will that take!?” Leo cried. 

“THINGS ARE VERY EXPLODEY BACK HERE!” Mike hollered.

“Count to thirty and then punch it!” Klaxor called back, already halfway down the hall. 

“Twenty nine…twenty eight,” Don began murmuring through his teeth.

“Stall,” Leo ordered. 

“How?!” 

“Hail them!” 

Don thrust the comm at Leo irritably. “Twenty four…twenty three…” 

Leo cleared his throat and pressed the button. 

“This is Captain Kirk of the Tang Shen, hailing Captain Mozar of the Triceraton Empire. We wish to negotiate the terms of surrender.” 

“You had your chance,” Mozar’s gravelly voice retorted. “I am going to enjoy destroying you delinquent pond scum.” 

“This is a  _ consular ship!”  _ Leo replied, immediately, a hint of desperation tinging his tone for the first time. “We are on a diplomatic mission!” 

“Thirteen, twel - are you quoting  _ Star Wars?!” _ Don hissed in disbelief. 

“I assure you, all of our papers are in order. If you cease fire, we’ll be happy to - ”

“Enough stalling!” Mozar roared. “On my command, blow them out of the sky.” 

“WAIT!” Leo cried. “Before you kill us, I have a crucial message for the Triceraton Emperor!” 

“Seven…six…”

“And what message is that?” 

“Five…four…”

“The Ambassador said to deliver the message…that he should…

“Three….two…

“That he should…”

“That he should  _ what?!” _ Mozar growled.

“PUNCH IT!” Klaxor hollered from the guts of the engine room.

“Kiss my ass,” Leo snarled into the receiver, giving Donnie a nod.

Don slapped his hand over the red button, and this time they were met by a fantastic lurch, so violent the comm went flying out of Leo’s hand. The stars outside turned into streaks, and then red and golden fire, the hairline cracks in the glass spidering ever outwards.

“Ohhhhhh geeeeeeeeze,” Donnie groaned, his voice vibrating as his chair shuddered under the strain. “I am reeeeally glad we fixed the warp exhaust today!”

“So just in case we die,” Leo hollered, “nice job today!” 

“That’s it?!” Don hollered back.  _ “‘Nice job?!’”  _

“Well, yeah!” Leo retorted defensively. “What do you want, a cookie?!”

“You know what?  _ Yes! _ A cookie would be nice!” 

“Fine, if we  _ live, _ you can have one!” 

The crack in the window suddenly branched into several more. 

“Oh Jesus,” Don groaned.

“Hey.”

Don looked over and locked eyes with Leo for a moment. Leo just nodded once, calmly. Don gulped a breath and nodded back, trying to slow his pounding heart. Leo closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and calmly waited for the end.

Don was not quite as graceful. He screwed his face up into a tight little knot, and gripped the vibrating, shuddering seat under him for dear life until, after what felt like ages, everything suddenly ceased. 

He opened one eye slowly, peering around the cockpit, where debris, papers, and a couple of screws floated lazily.

“Is that it?” Leo hollered. Don jumped. Without the roar of the warp engines it was alarmingly quiet. Except for a weird hiss…

_ Oh no. _

He looked at the window, where he could see tiny wisps of vapor seeping through the crack and curling gracefully out into the void.

“That’s gonna go any minute,” he said, hastily unbuckling himself. 

He and Leo scrambled out of their harnesses, and pulled themselves through the hatchway. They were just closing the door, when all of a sudden there was a loud snap, and a roar, the suction immediately ripping the door out of their grip and slamming it shut. With a wrench, Don and Leo twisted the wheel closed to seal it.

Don placed a shaking hand over his chest and took a thin breath.

“Let’s check on the others.” Leo pulled himself down the hall towards the galley.

The galley was a complete disaster - protein paste spackled every surface, globs of it floating lazily by, along with shattered bowls and plates, random utensils, and bits and pieces of ship. Raph was nursing a bump on his head.

“Let me look,” Don said automatically, pulling himself forward and tenderly pulling Raph’s hand away so he could check the injury. There was a small cut, bleeding profusely, and a sizable goose egg. Possible concussion. He wished he had his pen light, but it was in the cockpit, and all of that had gotten sucked out into  -

His breath caught, as the very nearness of their brush with death caught up to him. 

“It’s fine,” Raph said, pushing his hand away. “Mikey went to check on Klaxor.”

“Here! We’re here!” Mikey said, emerging from the engine room hatch. “But, uh…”

“Wootanga nib tuloa machodo tak,” Klaxor said, bobbing at Mikey’s side like a very odd brownish balloon.

“Huh. Okay,” Leo said. “I guess…warping must have knocked out the collars somehow.” 

“Tuloa machodo!” Klaxor repeated, emphatically.  _ “Tak!” _

Leo just shrugged at her. She released Mike’s hand, and held them both up at her throat. She stuck out of her tongue, and mimed gagging.

“Air,” Don blurted, with a sinking feeling. “We must be venting atmo in a hundred places. Either that or our CO2 scrubbers got demoed.” 

Klaxor pointed at Don and nodded emphatically. 

“That’s right,” Leo said, remembering as he spoke. “We can’t understand her, but she can understand us.”

He turned towards her.

“Klaxor,” he said, slowly and clearly. “Can you fix it?” 

She shook her head sadly.

“So…what now, dudes?” Mike said, nervously.

Klaxor pointed dolefully across the room. They turned to follow with their eyes.

“Escape pods,” Leo said, his voice and posture sinking visibly, even as he floated there in midair.

“If we’re not going to have breathable atmosphere, we have to abandon,” Don agreed. 

“But…where do we go?” Mike asked nervously. “I mean…do we even know if there’s a planet around here?”

“If I remember right, the pods send out a distress signal,” Don replied. “And are programmed to find the nearest habitable planet and land…but…we don’t even know where in the universe we are. We don’t know if there’s anyone who’d even hear the signal, or how long it might take to make landfall. It could be days, or…years.”

“In which case, we’ll slowly starve to death. Nice,” Raph said sourly. He bobbed awkwardly, trying to pull himself into a normal standing position, obviously hating the zero G. 

“Well, we’d probably freeze first,” Don replied. “Once the fuel source and the battery die down, the heat would be the first thing to go, followed by the CO2 scrubbers…so it’s kind of a toss up, freeze or suffocate - ”

“Okay!” Leo snapped. He sighed, and mopped his face. “Okay. So, what I’m hearing is - if we stay here we’re definitely going to die. If we abandon…we might die, but we might not.” 

They all absorbed this for a moment.

“Well, when you put it like that,” Raph said, eyeing the pods nervously.

“Okay. Let’s do this.” 

They pushed off of the nearest surface and floated towards the escape pods, bumping into each other awkwardly.

“Least there’s plenty to go around,” Mike observed helpfully.

“Shh! You’ll jinx it,” Raph grumbled.

“Okay, climb in, Mikey.”

“What? No! I don’t wanna go first!”

“Go on,” Leo insisted. 

“No! I - please,” he begged. “I don’t wanna be alone.”

“Michelangelo,” Leo snapped. “Get in the _ pod!” _

The reality of what they were about to do seemed to hit them all at once, and Mikey flung his arms around Leo, squeezing tight.

“It’s gonna be okay, little brother,” Leo lied, patting his shell gently. “We’ll see you real soon. Promise.” 

“Try not to get into too much trouble,” Raph said gruffly. He was trying to smile but it just came out as a grimace.

Mike made eye contact with Don, his blue eyes wide and frantic, and Don tried to smile and nod and be reassuring like Raph and Leo, but inside he felt his guts turn unpleasantly at the thought of sending Mikey out into space on his own.

“Bye, Klaxor,” Mikey gulped, his voice sounding high and strained.

Klaxor nodded. “Huttuna ma chingo,” she said solemnly, putting a hand over her heart, and then closing it to a fist.

“Back at ya,” Mike said, raising a fist.

_ “Now, _ Mikey,” Leo ordered gently.

Mikey nodded, and opened the hatch to the pod. It was smaller than the typical hatches on the ship, so he had to float carefully through and then take his seat. His face was just visible through the glass as he sat.

“Okay,” he said, obviously trying to calm himself down. “Okay, uh…bye.”

Don felt his eyes starting to sting, but tried to look reassuring, and force his breath to stay even.

There was a squeaky wrench as Mike sealed the door.

“Okay, fire up the power,” Don called.

There was an awkward pause as Mike concentrated, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth.

“Um…”

“The big green one, Mike,” Don said, affection competing with his jangling nerves.

“I know, I  _ am!” _ Mike insisted.

“Are you sure you - 

“Dude, I’m not colorblind!” Mikey snapped. “Nothing’s happening!” 

Don blanched. 

“Get him out of there.”

He and Leo hurriedly opened the hatchway and pulled Mikey back into the galley. 

“Uhh…that was a short trip,” he joked, visibly relieved. 

Don mashed the green button multiple times.

“No power,” he groaned. “We’d be dead in an hour.” 

“Is it all of them or just that one?” Leo asked tersely.

“This one’s okay,” Raph called.

He was sitting in another pod with the hatch open. In contrast to the first one, a soft white light was emitting, along with a quiet hiss of oxygen.

“Raph!” Don cried. “You’re using up oxygen!”

“So hurry up an’ get in, Mikey!” 

Raph was about to climb out, but Mikey raised his feet and kicked forcibly off of Leo’s chest, flying towards Raph and sending Leo flying backwards.

“Leo!”

Mikey slammed the door on Raph and closed the wheel with one solid wrench.

“What are you - no! No, no you  _ doofus _ ,  _ you’re _ supposed to be first!” Raph roared, one green fist pressed against the glass. “You - ”

“Sorry Raphie,” Mike whispered, and hit the emergency launch.

There was a loud whooshing noise and impossibly fast, Raph’s face disappeared. Only stars were visible behind the hatch. That and…

“Uh, hey…Donnie?” 

“Yes, Mike?” Don asked, shakily.

“I thought you said there can’t be any fire in space.” 

“Well…there has to be air, for there to…”

His eyes widened. 

“Mikey, get away from the - 

There was another concussive boom that shuddered all around them and Mikey was thrown back from the hatchway, hitting his head on a pipe, and landing slack in Don’s arms.

“Mikey!”

“There must have been a spark during the launch,” Don called to Leo. “There’s fire in the reserve tanks. We gotta go now.”

Leo pulled himself over to the next pod. 

“The glass is cracked!” he called, an unfamiliar tinge of panic in his voice. 

“So go to the next one!” Don ordered, pushing off gently, guiding Mike’s unconscious body with him. 

Leo reached in, hit the button, and to Don’s immense relief, the soft glow flickered on, and there was a hiss of oxygen. He and Leo awkwardly crammed Mike’s unconscious form into the pod, strapped him in, and sealed the door. With a push of the emergency launch, he was away and clear.

“Okay,” Leo said, “You next.”

Don quickly scanned. Three of them. Two pods left.

“Negative,” he replied, with a sinking feeling. “There’s fire on the ship. Someone has to stay behind and shut down the warp, and make sure the flames don’t reach the main tank. Otherwise the pods might not clear the explosion.” 

“Okay, so I’ll do it.”

“Why, because the Captain goes down with the ship?” Don returned sarcastically. “You don’t even know  _ how.  _ It’ll only take me a minute.”

Leo scowled. “If you think I’m going to just leave you here to - 

“Klaxor and I can share a pod!” Don snapped. “She consumes less oxygen than an Earthling, it’ll be fine! Now stop being dramatic and go!” 

Leo hesitated, looking at the pod. Then he shook his head and turned back to Don. 

“No, Donnie, listen, go do what you need to do, and then when you come back, we can alI - ”

Don’s eyes suddenly widened and he pointed over Leo’s shoulder, aghast.

_ “Holy shit!” _

Shocked, Leo turned to look over his shoulder, and Don promptly smashed his head against the wall. 

“Sorry.”

“Unnggghh…”

“You’ll thank me later. Well, probably not. But you’ll be alive,” Don babbled as he stuffed Leo into a pod and fired it up. “Well…probably not. But here’s hoping right? Um. Um.”

He paused to wipe tears roughly with his forearm. 

“Love you. Bye,” he finally choked. With a wrench, he sealed the hatch, and sent Leo out to meet his fate.

He took a shaky breath, turned to his right, and found Klaxor floating there, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Bilu worra machodo tak gabin,” she said, pointing at the last pod.

“I know,” Don nodded, resigned. “There’s not enough air in the pod for both of us.” 

There was a brief pause where they looked at each other, and then Klaxor suddenly turned to push off the wall, but Don anticipated, and grabbed her by the ankle. She turned around and started punching him on the arm.

“Natange no piluh ah mona ga! Da  _ frell _ be tankga na Donatello ga!” 

“Yeah, I suck,” Don agreed miserably, wrestling Klaxor into the final pod. “Stop squirming. _ Ow!” _

He buckled her into the seat, and as she reached to unbuckle herself, he slammed the door shut and sealed it.

A moment later her face appeared at the bottom of the window, her brown hand smacking against the glass. 

“I can’t believe you  _ bit _ me,” he said, chuckling lightly.

_ “Donatello!” _ she shouted through the glass, dark tears running down her cheeks, “Da _ frell  _ be tankga, Donnie, wo chuda no piluh ah - 

“Heh,” Don said, giving her a watery smile. “I must be part Blerfid. Because I can’t understand a word you’re saying, but…I’m pretty sure I get the gist of it.”

Klaxor gave off yelling, and just pressed a hand to the glass. Donnie put his green one over it. 

“Thank you for being my friend,” he said simply. “If you find them…tell them…Tell them I’m sorry.”

“Donatello - 

“Goodbye.” 

He hit the emergency launch, and watched his final hope launch away.

He paused for a moment, sighed, and then turned to examine the debris-strewn disaster that had been their home for nearly six months. Turned out this Tang Shen was about to meet the same fate as her predecessor. At least she’d have some company this time.

“Well, Mom,” he muttered under his breath. “Looks like it’s just us.”

He pushed off from the wall and headed for the cockpit, already noting the edges of his vision were going a bit blurry.

_ Ah. Well, at least I won’t freeze first. _

He was about to open the hatch, when he suddenly remembered and jerked his hands back as though burned: It was all breached. He couldn’t even go set a distress signal. 

Shaking his head to clear it, he licked his lips, though his whole mouth had gone dry.

“Get your head on straight, Donnie.” 

He floated down to the engine room, drifted down through the hatch, and sealed it shut behind him.

“Okay. Shut down the warp and stop the fire before it reaches the main tanks.”

He popped the Zenturion crystal out of its housing, and pocketed it out of habit - though he wasn’t really sure why. Not like he’d need it.

Stopping the fire was another matter. The controls for the hatchways and emergency extinguishers were all in the cockpit.

Thinking to himself, he located the nearest panel, and wrenched it free, pausing as his vision began to swim. 

“Woah. Heh,” he chuckled wryly. “Head rush.”

Wading his way through a nest of wires, he carefully followed which ones led where, until he was reasonably confident he found the ones to the hatch controls and the emergency shield. Taking out his utilitool, he stripped the insulation, and tapped the naked wires with the metal tool.

“Come on…come on…”

Finally there was a small spark, and the system shorted. Don felt the ship shudder, as the outer emergency shield dropped, and various hatchways clunked open. There was a dull roar, as the last of the remaining atmosphere was sucked from the ship, and then…silence.

“Okay,” Don nodded, a dull migraine beginning to form. He pushed the wires back in place and gave them a friendly pat. “Nice job, guys.” 

He looked around the engine room, spots beginning to form at his peripheral vision, and gently pushed off for Klaxor’s hammock. It was kind of useless without gravity…but he wrapped it around himself anyway, for warmth. He couldn’t believe it was only about an hour ago that he and Mikey and Klaxor had been hanging out down here, trying to avoid another “A-Team” squabble. He sighed and closed his eyes, already beginning to feel sleepy.

“Shoulda brought a book,” he mumbled, to himself. “Or stolen Mikey’s - ”

His eyes flew open. 

Mikey’s Game Dude.

It was equipped with a GPS, which meant it could communicate with satellites, at least on Earth…maybe it could do so out here? 

Pulling himself out of the hammock, Don began to float around the engine room. Mikey had it in here this morning…of course, that didn’t mean anything. He could have easily tucked it into his belt, or brought it back to his bunk, or - 

No. No, he hadn’t gone back to his bunk…they’d gone straight from here to the cockpit. Did he have it there?

Don froze momentarily. If Mike had brought it to the cockpit with him, then odds were it was either still with him, or it had gotten sucked out into space. Did he bring it to the cockpit?  _ Think _ , Donnie. 

And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw it. Floating there underneath the hammock he’d just left, the charge cord still tethering it to the wall.

He reached out and took it in trembling hands. The screen was cracked, but the battery logo blinked 90% and still charging.

“Okay,” Don whispered, booting it up. “Okay.” 

_________________________

“Are you quite sure, Captain? I, or any of the others on the Away Team would be happy to - ”

“For the last time, Ensign, I needed to stretch my legs. Think of it as the privilege of rank, if you want.”

Captain Jhanna picked her way carefully through the galley, suction boots making a solid thud each time they landed and releasing with a hiss at each step, her umbilical curling and trailing behind her, back to The Discovery, the flagship and pride of the Omatran fleet. 

“Does it look like pirates?”

“Not sure,” the Captain replied, her voice tinged with a plastic-y echo inside her helmet. “The cargo bay door was left open and there was no cargo. But…all the other external hatches were open as well. Could be they had a fire.”

“Or the pirates spaced them,” the Ensign replied, a shudder in her voice. 

Captain Jhanna smiled a cat-like smile. “Yes, or that. But somebody sent the distress signal.” 

“It could be a trap, Captain.”

“Scanners only read one life form. Not much of an ambush. And the Triceraton Empire Database we recovered confirms it’s an Earth Distress Code,” Captain Jhanna replied. “Three short, three long, three short.”

“Yes, but…Earth? It’s a mudball on the complete opposite side of the galaxy. What are they even  _ doing _ out here?” 

“It’s too specific a pattern to be random,” she replied dismissively. “Originating from the engine room you said?”

“Yes. We’ve got visual on the cockpit. Main shield is gone. Anyone that was in there…isn’t anymore. Engine room is where the heat signal is.” 

“Making my way there now.” 

Jhanna carefully stomp-squelched her way over to the hatch, knelt down, and tapped the metal of the oxygen tank she carried against it.

“This is Captain Jhanna of the Omatran ship Discovery,” she announced. “We come in peace.” 

Nothing.   
  


“Captain, if you wait for back-up, we could have a team there in - 

“Calm down, Ensign Kharra,” she replied affectionately. “I’m just going to take a quick peek.”

Gripping the wheel, she gave a soft grunt as she twisted it open, a hiss of released oxygen confirming that there was still pressure. Or had been, a moment ago. Small debris thunked against the hatch as the room depressurized until suddenly - 

WHUNK.

Jhanna hastily opened the hatch to reveal -

Her eyes widened. 

_ “J’tarra!”  _


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing Donatello was aware of was an intense headache - the kind of blinding, twisting, cramping agony behind his eye socket that could only mean a migraine. He’d had repeated sinus infections when he was a kid...that coupled with late nights staring at a computer screen meant he’d often get them. He eventually figured out some hacks; filtering the blue light from his screens, aspirin and caffeine, dimming the lights and putting on some noise-cancelling headphones when he felt the first twinge...even Mikey had eventually learned that the clunky orange headset meant “not now.” 

But Don hadn’t had a migraine this bad in years...the kind that left him nauseated and weak, clutching the sheets to keep the world from spinning. If sensei were here, he’d brew him some vile-tasting tea and make him drink it...that part, Don wasn’t wild about. But after that, he’d sit next to his bed and gently hum while they waited for it to work, his voice a deep, gravelly rumble, as he ran a clawed hand over the smooth dome of his scalp. That part was nice.    
  
Don moaned softly to himself, suddenly overwhelmed with homesickness. He felt a hand on his brow. 

“Dad?” he mumbled weakly. 

_ “Say ‘sensei,’” _ his mind automatically chided.  _ “Show proper respect, you’re not a baby.” _ The voice of his superego apparently sounded like Leo. The voice that was talking now, however - 

Wait, someone was talking? 

“Help,” he rasped weakly against the tide of strange words flooding over him.

That was all he could get out before he sank back into the peace of unconsciousness...he hadn’t even opened his eyes. 

It only felt like seconds later that he groggily resurfaced from the darkness. His head still hurt a bit, but it wasn’t as bad...his nose felt weird, though. He tried to wrinkle it, and felt a mild stab of pain. He brought a hand up to touch it automatically, and brushed what felt like plastic tubing wrapped with moss. He slowly opened his eyes, blinking against the light, and looked around the room. A soft tone began beeping musically. With a dim spark of curiosity, his pain faded to the background as he began examining the equipment surrounding him.

With sudden shock, he realized he wasn’t dead, and was very much supposed to be.    
  
Klaxor - his brothers! Where were they - did their pods land safely? How was he - 

The door slid open with a quiet whoosh, and a slender blue alien with cat-like features and white-gold hair walked in. Finding him awake, he smiled, and said something in an alien language. Don shrugged in incomprehension. This didn’t seem to deter the creature in the slightest, who let off a not-unpleasant rattle of unintelligible conversation as he checked various machines, pressed buttons, and gently poked and prodded Donatello. He tried to be a good patient and take it all in stride. He was going to shift over a bit, to allow the blue alien to get to the machines better, when - 

The blood in his veins turned icy, and he felt a sharp twinge in his heart. 

“My legs,” he whispered. He looked down, and they were, in fact still there. 

He just couldn’t feel them.    
  
Or move them. 

“My legs,” he repeated, his voice shaking a bit. He reached out and grabbed the slim blue wrist of the alien, making eye contact pleadingly. “Please. I can’t feel my legs. What happened? Am I?...”

He couldn’t even say the word. Thoughts of watching his brothers training without him, of sitting at home while they went out to patrol flashed through his head. He reminded himself, with growing anxiety, that he had no idea where his brothers were, if they’d even survived, if he’d ever see them again, ever see home - 

A lump rose in his throat and his eyes began to burn, as the blue alien boy (was it a boy? He thought so, but…”alien”) babbled constantly and gently pressed him back. Once Don was leaning back again, he turned and hurried from the room. 

“Wait, please!” Don called after him, his hand outstretched. Left alone, he clenched his hands into fists, stared up at the ceiling, and tried to get a grip. 

_ “Control your breathing,”  _ his father’s voice sounded in his memory.  _ “Observe what you are feeling, and allow the emotions to drift past you, like clouds.”  _

“I am feeling panic,” Don recited mentally. “Just look at all that panic flying around up there. Yep, lot of panic we’re having today.” 

He let out a thin, high pitched chuckle, took a shaky breath, and blew it away, convincing his hands to unclench. He really wanted to take out whatever this thing in his nose was, but not knowing what it was made him hesitate. They had obviously rescued him from the ship and were trying to help him...for now he’d just have to trust that whatever they had done to him was in his best interest. 

Just as he’d decided this, the door whooshed open again, and the little blue alien returned, this time flanked by three larger ones. All these were more feminine in appearance, and they all wore uniforms. One had a rather severe, boxy bob and an expression of vague distaste...the other was a bit plump, with a long, thick braid draped over her shoulder, and a warm, curious smile. The third - 

_ Wow. _

Don’s eyes widened as he took her in. He didn’t know if it was weird to be attracted to an alien but he had to admit - she was gorgeous. She had an angular face with high cheekbones and ears that tapered into a slender point, and the blue of her skin darkened slightly at her cheeks and lips to a deep indigo. She had a powerful, striking frame and long, strong legs - she looked like she ran track and field. He could easily imagine her leaping hurdles. But what impressed him most were the lengthy braids that spilled from a high ponytail on top of her head. She had a regal bearing, and from the body language of the others in the room, he assumed she was the leader. Not sure what else to do, he nodded as best as he was able in a kind of bow. 

He was pleased when they all smiled and nodded back. Well, all except the severe looking one, who continued to give him the stinkeye. 

“I guess...you saved my life?” he started. “Thank you. I - ”

He was interrupted as the regal one held up a hand to stop him. She turned to the plump alien on her left and murmured a few words. The plump one and the smaller male exchanged a few words, and then he walked over with a translating collar on a tray. Don sighed in relief, lifted his jaw, and sat up a bit, as he was fitted. The young boy fiddled with it for a bit, then activated it.    
  
“C’tokka no ilurea wi allama nobek?” the attractive alien asked him. 

Don shrugged apologetically. 

“Allama,” she repeated, gesturing at her throat, and then to him, prompting. 

“I’m sorry,” Don said. “No, it’s not working.” 

The collar beeped softly when he spoke, and she gestured for him to continue. 

“Et maintenant?” she said, “Est-ce que vous me comprenez maintenant?” 

“I...is that?...uh….oui, un...petit-peu,” Don tried, trying to wrestle some middle-school French from the dusty recesses of his memory. “Parlez-vous francais?”

“J’ai rien d’idée. Pour moi, je parle Omatran maintenant. Vouz entendez une langue de votre plan è te?” 

“Uh…” Don winced. He’d gotten maybe every third word of that. “Plan è te...Earth? Uh...La...La Terre?”

“C’est pas votre langue?” 

“I’m sorry, I...” he repeated, feeling dumb. “Um. Parlez-vous anglais? Ou japonais? S’il vous plait,” he added, as an afterthought. 

She smiled broadly, her teeth dazzling white, canines pointed. It had an effect both alluring and slightly predatory, and in spite of his predicament, Don felt his pulse quicken. 

“Alors, au moin c’est un extraterrestre poli,” she murmured to her companions. The plump looking one tittered. The severe looking one glowered even harder. Don wondered if they’d noticed his pulse on the monitors, and felt his face warm.

The young one fiddled with his collar a bit, pushed another button, and it beeped once more. 

“And now?” the beautiful blue woman prompted. “Do you understand us now?” 

“Yes,” Don said, his shoulders sinking with relief, words quickly bubbling to the surface. “Please, my brothers, do you know if any of them made it? How did you find me? How long have I been out? And my legs, I can’t move them, why -”

The regal looking one held up a hand, and he abruptly closed his mouth. 

“We will ask the questions,” the severe-looking one said, her mouth a grim line. 

“Perhaps it will be best if we begin with introductions,” the beautiful one said, the corners of her purple lips turning upwards ever-so-slightly. “I am Captain Jhanna of the Omatran flagship Discovery. This is Ensign Kharra,” she said, gesturing to Angry Haircut, “and this is Doctor Prymme.” She gestured to the pudgy one next to her with the braid, in conclusion.

Don turned to the young one, expectantly.

“Oh, that’s Cereth,” Doctor Prymme said, as if suddenly reminded. “He’s a Cadet. He’s been assisting me in the Med Bay lately. He kept good watch over you while you were unconscious.” 

Cereth smiled shyly and stood straighter under the praise. 

“Thank you,” Don nodded. 

“Your name?” the Ensign prompted. 

“Donatello.”

“How are you feeling, Donatello?” Doctor Prymme prompted. 

“I can’t move my legs,” Don said, immediately, all other symptoms forgotten. “Please, tell me, if something is wrong, I - 

“No cause for concern!” Doctor Prymme interrupted. “We simply disabled them for now.”

A chill went down Don’s spine and he looked from Doctor Prymme to Captain Jhanna’s cool eyes suspiciously. 

“Disabled them?”

“Yes! It seems your spine is fused to that armor on your back,” Doctor Prymme rattled on, a glimmer of excitement in her eyes. “Most unusual in a biped! We found it difficult to check your spine for damage, so we inserted a simple nerve block. We didn’t want you hurting yourself upon waking.” 

“Or attempting to escape,” the severe-looking one said, arching a brow. What was her name? Ensign Something…Don decided he didn’t like her. 

“Ah,” he said, a bit stiffly. “Well. Could you...remove it?” 

“I don’t think you’re in any position to make demands,” the Ensign said, taking a step forward, her arms uncrossing. “The Triceraton Fleet has a warrant out for your arrest! We find you alone, half-dead, on a  _ stolen _ ship, and - ”

“Excuse me,” Don interrupted, his hackles rising, “but when I woke up in a hospital I assumed I was a patient. Now I’m beginning to feel very much like a prisoner. So tell me, please - am I a patient? Or a prisoner?”

There was an awkward pause where everyone looked at Captain Jhanna and waited for an answer.

“I think we were hoping this conversation would answer that question,” she replied carefully.

Don didn’t really know what to say to that, but it didn’t sound very reassuring. 

“Your crew mate has been most... _ unhelpful,” _ the Ensign prodded. “But if you cooperate with us, I’m sure that we can - ”

“Crew mate? Wait - you picked up another pod? Where are they? Please, let me see them!”   
  
Don pulled himself upright, determined to drag himself out of bed even if he had to crawl. He tried to pull the mossy thing out of his nose, but it only stung harder. Cereth hastily reached forward and tried to pull his hands away from his face, push him back down to the bed, but Don just shrugged him off fiercely. Cereth stepped back immediately, looking abashed, and Don felt a little twinge of guilt. Cereth had taken good care of him while he was out - these aliens had saved his life, after all, and he knew firsthand what it was like dealing with patients who were...less than ideally compliant.

“Please,” he begged, addressing the regal one with the hypnotic, sapphire eyes. “Please, just let me see them. I’ll do anything. I’ll cooperate however you need me to, Captain. Please, just let me see them.” 

The others turned and studied Captain’s face, waiting for orders as she stared into Don’s eyes.    
  
“Doctor Prymme,” she said. “I think we’re alright here for now. Thank you.”    
  
The pudgy one with the braid nodded, gave Don one final worried glance, and stepped out. 

“Ensign Kharra. Bring the other one.” 

Giving him one final suspicious look, Ensign Kharra stepped from the room as well. Don licked his lips and fiddled with his fingers anxiously. 

“Would you like that out of your nose?” Captain Jhanna asked. 

“Hm? Oh...yes, please.” 

Cereth reached forward, but Jhanna held up a hand, and walked over to attend to it herself. Surprised, Cereth nodded his head and stepped back. 

Don felt a little flutter of nerves, butterflies dancing around his stomach as she leaned over him. 

_ “Get a grip, this is basically a hostage situation,” _ he chided himself. 

To his surprise, Captain Jhanna placed her slim blue hand just under his nose, puckered her lips and began to gently blow in his face. Suddenly, he felt what he had taken for plastic tubing begin to shift inside his nostrils. With a small amount of horror and a large amount of curiosity, he felt whatever was on his face slip out of his slim nostrils, and plop from his face into her waiting hand. There were a few traces of blood on the pale, rubbery appendages. Captain Jhanna smiled, and stroked the mossy-looking body of...whatever that was, with a slim blue finger. 

_ “Mentak,”  _ she answered his unasked question. “They eat carbon dioxide and make oxygen, depositing it directly into the bloodstream, like an extra lung. Very useful in cases of oxygen deprivation.” 

“It’s a plant?”

“It’s a pet,” she corrected, still stroking the body of the little critter affectionately. “Her name is Dgenni.” 

“Jenny?” Don replied incredulously.

Don was startled as the mossy-looking thing suddenly let out a little trilling purr. The captain turned and handed it to Cereth. 

“Go and return her to Mhorra please. Thank her for letting us borrow Dgenni, and tell her she has an extra day’s leave coming her way.” 

Cereth nodded, cupped his hands, and took the little bundle, which had curled its slimy white appendages around itself cozily, and stepped from the infirmary, leaving Don and Captain Jhanna alone together. 

“I feel like we may have gotten off on the wrong foot,” Don started. “I promise, I mean you no harm. I’m just worried for my family.”

“I don’t know what ‘the wrong foot’ means,” the Captain smiled. “But I knew you weren’t a threat.” 

“Then why all the show?” 

“Fact is fact,” she said, sitting on the edge of Don’s bed. He gulped nervously and was actually glad for the first time that he was numb from the waist down. “You are technically a wanted criminal. Omatra has no love for the Triceraton Empire...yet, we have remained neutral thus far, and to openly aid and abet a fugitive…” 

“So...you’re handing us over?” Don asked, his heart sinking. 

“Frankly,” Jhanna admitted, “we’re not sure what to do with you.” 

Just then, the door slid open with a whooshing sound. Don sat up, a lump in his throat. 

“Klaxor?”

Her eyes going wide and round, Klaxor shrugged roughly out of Ensign Kharra’s grip, took a running start, and leapt up into Don’s arms as they embraced one another fiercely. 

“You idiot!” she cried. “You frelling  _ idiot, _ I could kill you!” 

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Don said, stifling tears. Beneath his happiness to see Klaxor again was the guilty disappointment that he still had no idea what had happened to his brothers. 

“Hmph. So she  _ can _ talk,” Ensign Kharra sniffed. 

Suddenly, Klaxor balled up a little fist, and pounded Donnie hard on the shoulder. 

“Don’t you  _ ever!” _ __  
__  
“I’m sorry.”    
  
“Don’t you __ ever do anything like that again!” 

“I’m sorry,” Don repeated, sincerely. “Klaxor, my brothers, are any of them here? Did you tell them about the other pods?” 

“No. I stayed zipped tighter than a stale snorp pod,” Klaxor hissed, her eyes searching Don’s anxiously. “Why, what did  _ you _ tell them? You know that we’re...well…”

Her eyes darted over her shoulder to where Captain Jhanna and Ensign Kharra stood listening. 

“...they’re, uh...that is, I mean…”

“We are  _ aware _ of your criminal records,” Ensign Kharra drawled. 

“Heh. Right.” 

“Alright. That’s enough. Back to your cell.”

“Cell?” Don replied, anxiously, as Klaxor was lead away. “Wait, she’s being held prisoner? Klaxor, are you okay? Are they treating you alright?”

“Don’t tell them anything, Don!” she called, and shot the Ensign a dirty look, pulling her arm free again. “Lay off, I know where I’m going.” 

“She is being well cared for,” Captain Jhanna reassured him, once they were alone again. 

“Thank you,” Don said, leaning back again. He was already exhausted from the brief conversation and his head was beginning to throb again.

“Of course,” she replied. “You must have been sick with worry about your mate.” 

“My?...” Don asked, puzzled. His mouth flew open as he realized. 

“You thought? Me and Klaxor?”

A laugh started low in his belly and burbled up, until he was shaking uncontrollably, one hand over his face. 

“I hardly see what’s so hilarious,” Captain Jhanna replied frostily. 

“A, Klaxor’s a lesbian,” Don replied dryly. “B, her people reproduce via budding. So...I’m doubly superfluous, as far as she’s concerned.”

Captain Jhanna’s brow lifted in surprise. “Ah. So... _ not _ your mate.”

“We’re friends,” Don said, still smiling at the idea. “No, ah - no ‘mate’ yet. For me.” 

He wasn’t sure why he’d added that, and his face felt a bit warm. 

“Please,” he pressed on. “My brothers also ejected from the ship in escape pods. They were programmed to find the nearest inhabitable planet and land. We have to find them.”

“We?” Captain Jhanna asked, one dark blue eyebrow arching. “The Omatran fleet isn’t in the habit of search-and-rescue missions for wanted fugitives.” 

“So...think of it as bounty hunting,” Don cast, desperately. “There must be a reward for us, right? Please, even if you decide to hand us over, at least I’d know they’re alive and safe, and we’d be together again. You could use us to gain favor with the Triceratons.”

Jhanna scowled. “We do not need to gain favor with - 

“Or leverage!” Don quickly changed tack. “You could trade us to them for something you want, or need! Anything! Just...please.” 

He felt a lump rising in his throat and tried his best to fight it back down. He didn’t want to appear weak in front of someone so obviously strong, so self-possessed but the thought of his brothers somewhere out there on their own, alone….

“They’re all I have,” he finished simply. “They’re  _ everything _ I have.”    
  
Jhanna stood, took a few steps away and turned her back, hands lacing behind her. Don tried not to stare as her tail twitched slowly back and forth, like a cat. 

“The Discovery is to report back to Omatra in two weeks’ time, to celebrate the election of a new Prime Magistrate,” she said, carefully. “I had promised my crew a week’s leave, before heading home. As of now, you and the Blerfid - 

“Klaxor,” Don gently interjected. 

“Whatever. You are considered prisoners of the Omatran Federation. We will search for and capture the rest of your crew if we are able, and then return to Omatran for the election.”    
  
She paused to smirk, spreading her hands in a small shrug. 

“It will be a very busy time, of course. If you were to somehow...slip away in the confusion?” 

“Thank you,” Don said fervently. “Captain Jhanna, thank you so much, I swear, if there’s anything we can do to help in  _ any _ way, I - 

She held up her hand again, with a friendly shake of her head, and smiled another dazzling smile. He was again struck dumb by her beauty, by just how white her teeth flashed against her deep blue, nearly-purple lips. 

“Rest. When Doctor Prymme is satisfied that there’s no spinal injuries and your circulation is strong, she’ll be by to remove the spinal block. In the meanwhile, we’ll search for the signals of the other pods.” 

“Thank you,” Don repeated. “Really, I can’t tell you what this means to me.” 

Jhanna strode for the door, then paused, as if weighing her words. 

“Understand, Donatello,” she said. “There are no guarantees. They may not have survived ejection, or landing. We may not be able to find them in the allotted week. Space is large, and hostile in the best of conditions. You would do best to brace yourself for bad news.” 

The scientist in Don knew that what she was saying was true. The statistician in him was equally doubtful. But as a brother…

“I have to try,” he murmured weakly. “Please, I...I don’t know what else to do.” 

Jhanna’s face softened with sympathy, and she gave a curt nod. 

“We’ll do our best. Rest now.” 

She swept from the room, the tuft of her tail just clearing the door before it whooshed shut again. 

Don closed his eyes and gritted his jaw, the corners of his eyes damp.

“I’m coming,” he whispered to no one. “Hang in there guys. I’m coming for you.”    
  
____

  
Miles and miles away, in the soft pink sand, two lizard-like creatures were basking in the sun. They didn’t know where the metal thing came from, but they did know it was hot, and hot was good. In fact, it was almost too hot. They carefully lifted their feet one at a time in a slow, lazy dance, making sure none of their toes touched the scorching metal surface for too long, enjoying the heat that radiated up to their bellies.     
  
Suddenly the metal thing groaned. Or rather, something in the metal thing groaned. They eyed each other suspiciously, then darted for cover as their newly found perch shuddered and began to move beneath them. 

The door of the escape pod slid very slowly open, displacing sand as it went, and Mike coughed as he pawed his way out of his harness and clambered out onto the sand. 

“Dude,” he whispered. His voice sounded hoarse and strained, like that time he got laryngitis. “Wipe out.” 

He struggled to his feet awkwardly, sinking and slipping in the fine powder until he was upright, and scanned his surroundings. The two lizards eyed him reproachfully. 

“‘Sup,” he grated, trying to clear his throat. “Uh, take me to your leader?”  

With a look of disdain, they dove head-first into the sand, wriggled their bodies rapidly and shuffled their way underground. 

“Yeah,” Mike sighed. “Worth a shot.” 

He held a hand up over his brow, and scanned the horizon. Rocks, rocks, sand, rocks, cloud, rocks, sand, sand...rocks? 

He squinted and brought the other hand up. It was hard to tell with the heat making wavy lines in the atmosphere, but it seemed like there were some structures in the distance that looked a little too rectangular to be natural. 

_ “Not  _ rocks,” he murmured in his new, gravelly, macho voice. “Bingo.” 

  
With a little sigh, he started off striding through the sand. 

[](http://imageshack.com/a/img924/5939/hShKh5.png)


	4. Chapter 4

Raph’s lips were stinging, which hurt. It hurt quite a bit actually, and he was someone who usually shrugged off a little pain. But they were also cold. And wet. Which was good.  _ So _ good. Better than his first kiss, better than anything had any right to be. His tongue felt like leather in his mouth, and he slid it lazily out over his lips - 

Water.

That was  _ water.  _

His arms felt like jello kittens, if that was a thing, but he still reached up to grab the bottle - 

“Slow. You drink slow.” 

Raph had no intention of taking it slow. He gulped the water as fast as he could, only vaguely registering the feel of the translator collar around his neck…he must have been fitted with a fresh one. The water was painful going down, but icy cold and  _ wet, _ and if he didn’t have a rep to protect he’d’ve started crying it was so goddamned  _ good.  _

“Good. Enough now.”

He tried to resist as the water was pulled away, but his arms were still jello kittens and whoever was talking pried it out of his grip easily, though not before he spilled a bit down his chin and his chest. He felt the droplets slide down his throat and pool behind the lip of his plastron, and a shudder went through his aching, cramping muscles. 

“Too much, you puke.” 

Indeed, Raph’s stomach was churning and sloshing angrily at the water, but he didn’t care, he’d chug that entire thing if he could. In fact - 

Raph finally cracked one eye open and took in his surroundings. 

It seemed he was in a dirt room, what almost appeared like a hole in the ground, the “furniture” actually just large, blocky piles of long-dried pinkish clay. He wouldn’t call it “cool” per se…the ambient temperature was still uncomfortably warm and dry. But the cruel sunlight outside was being filtered through dusty orbs of glass mounted in the ceiling, and the heat was bearable. It reminded him, oddly, of looking at the light through a manhole cover. 

“Where am I?” he rasped. 

___

The door to Don’s cell-slash-quarters made its habitual chiming, and he looked up from his reading with a warm smile. 

“Come on in, Klaxor.”

To his surprise, it was Jhanna who appeared when the door slid open.

“Captain! I - you - hi!” 

Don grimaced mentally and hastily stood out of his chair, wondering if he should salute or something, but she grinned and assumed a relaxed stance that made him feel more at ease.

“How are you adjusting?” she asked, looking around the small room. 

“Fine! Very well, thank you,” Don replied, eyes darting nervously to his bunk, wishing irrationally that he’d made the bed. 

“Please, sit,” Jhanna said, gesturing for him to do so. He sat on the edge of his bunk, and to his delight, she took the chair opposite him, at his one small table. 

He observed her a moment in silence, wondering what prompted her visit. He figured she would have announced her purpose by now - Captain Jhanna seemed fairly forthright. But instead her jaw was working, as if she were chewing back words…was she uncomfortable? 

“The, ah - books were - thank you,” he stammered, to fill the space. He patted the one he’d just closed. “It’s nice to know that even alien cultures have books.” 

Jhanna quirked an eyebrow. “You assumed we were…illiterate?”

“What? No!” Don hastily objected, his face heating. “I just thought you might have all of your information on disk drives, or…uh…stored electronically I guess is what I mean. But…there’s something nice about an actual, real…book.” 

He twiddled his fingers together, and cringed. 

“I think so too,” Jhanna said, with a polite smile. “I’m impressed you’ve begun learning our language in only three days.”

“Heh! Nah, it’s - I’m very much a beginner,” he said, scratching an imaginary itch on the back of his neck. “But it helps pass the time.” 

Jhanna nodded distractedly at his mention of his captivity, and he worried he may have committed a faux pas. 

“So…to what do I owe the pleasure?” 

Jhanna’s distracted gaze into the middle distance turned into a brief smile that made his mouth go dry.

“So polite,” she murmured warmly. She took a breath, and her stance stiffened slightly. “I wanted it to come directly from me. We’ve been monitoring as far as our sensors can reach for any signal from your life pods, and we haven’t been able to pick anything up. Of course, that could mean they’re simply out of range - the pod signals only extend so far. So, we’ve also been discreetly contacting all three of the nearest planets, in hopes that your brothers’ life pods were able to land.”

“Anything?” Don prompted, already dreading the answer.

“Yes,” Jhanna replied, coolly. “But - 

Don was already on his feet. 

“Please,” she interrupted, holding up a palm. 

With agonizing difficulty, Don slowly sank back down.

“There is a desert planet nearby. B-612. It has no other name. It’s not heavily populated - mostly used for mining. They do monitor their surrounding atmosphere quite carefully, however, because of the planet’s value. They reported an unidentified flying object entered their atmosphere and made landfall two days ago.”

“That’s got to be - 

“When they positioned their security satellite however, they found only wreckage. The pod crashed,” Jhanna finished. 

Don digested this, licking his lower lip. 

“Well,” he started, “that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s…”    
  
He couldn’t bring himself to say it. 

“I’ve already agreed to assign a small away team to examine the site,” Jhanna pressed. “But…I think you must prepare yourself for bad news, Donatello. We have only located one pod of three, and the supply of fresh air in the pods will soon expire.” 

“You don’t think I know that?” he said, more heatedly than he’d planned.

There was an awkward pause, and Don rubbed a hand over his scalp and face. 

“I’m sorry,” Don said, meeting her eyes. “You…are being so kind, and - 

He nearly swallowed his tongue as Jhanna put a hand on his bicep. 

“Donatello,” she said, her voice rich and warm with feeling. “I have lost crew members before. It is never easy.” 

“They’re my family,” he said, trying very hard to swallow the lump in his throat.

She squeezed her slim blue hand on his bicep firmly. Her grip was surprisingly strong.

“I have lost that, too,” she said, her royal blue eyes piercing his. 

Don nodded shakily. “Thank you. For telling me. When do we land?” 

Jhanna blinked in surprise.

“I will send an away team. I’ll be sure to brief you when - ”

“I’m coming.”

Jhanna’s beautiful face became fixed, an impassive, Sphinx-like stare. 

“I am unaccustomed to taking orders from fugitives.” 

“Oddly, I’m usually pretty good with following them,” Don said, holding her gaze. “But I’ll confess to a certain…stubborn streak, when it comes to family.”

Jhanna’s Sphinx-like calm was betrayed by a slight tic in her temple. Don had to fight from smirking it reminded him so much of Leo. 

“Our away teams have years of experience. Even the freshest Academy graduate has at least three  _ years _ of training in First Contact protocol, diplomacy, strategy, and various modes of combat.” 

“Really?” Don replied, trying very hard to sound respectful. “Three  _ whole _ years?”

“Do you…question the capabilities of my crew?” 

Don’s stroked his chin, stalling for time, and his glance wandered over to his bo leaning in the corner of the room, which they had politely returned after his first day out of the hospital wing.

“How about…a little wager?” 

  
  


_____

“So…what’s your name?” Raph managed to rasp a few hours later.

“Spentarr.”

Raph nearly dropped his cup and its precious contents.

“What?!”

“Spen. Tarr,” the alien said, slowly and clearly.

“Oh,” Raph muttered, posture slumping back down into his seat. “I thought…nevermind.”

He took in the alien’s appearance - he was a dusty rose color, a bit darker than the pink sand of the planet. What was the word?

_ “It’s not  _ pink, _ Raph,”  _ April’s voice sounded in his memory. He could picture her sulking with her arms folded, leaning on the back of her ugly new couch.  _ “It’s mauve.” _

Mauve. That was the word.

The alien was mauve, roughly humanoid in shape, but unnaturally thin, and there were odd, bony angles to his jaw that reminded Raph uncomfortably of insects. 

“Spentarr,” Raph repeated. “Is there a way for me to send a message?” 

“No.”

Raph’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. 

“You…don’t have a phone?” 

“What?”

“It’s…uh. How do you…talk to people?”

“No people. Used to be. Now just Spentarr.”

“Oh. Huh.”

Raph looked guiltily around the tiny dwelling and pondered all the times he’d lost his temper…all the times Mikey had stolen the last slice of pizza, for example, or Don had corrected his pronunciation, or Leo had been - well,  _ Leo; _ and he had wished, sometimes  _ aloud _ , that he could live somewhere like this - isolated and alone. He suddenly wished very badly that he knew where they were right now, if they felt the same deep sense of  _ wrongness _ at being separated like this…if they were even - 

“Well,” Raph said, interrupting his own train of thought. “Where’s the nearest…town? City?”

“Long,” Spentarr said, still seated in the same place. Raph felt uncomfortable, like he ought to be doing something - but there was really nothing to do in the small space other than sit and stare at each other. “You walk it, you die first.” 

“Okaaaay,” Raph gritted, trying to control his temper. “How about transport? You must have some kind of way to…move around. What if you need something from town?”

“No need town,” Spentarr said flatly. “Born here. Die here. Maybe before, more people, make a journey. Some make it, some no. But now? Go alone? No. Too long. Die first.”

Worry began to gnaw at Raph. He had absolutely nothing…no Shell Cell, no sai, not even his mask or leathers, no means of transport, no means of communication, and he had no idea if his brothers had safely landed anywhere, or if he’d ever see them again. It began to sink in that he might be stuck, sitting in this tiny, dim, warm room, with a pink - sorry,  _ mauve _ \- bug guy named Spentarr for the rest of his life. 

“So…uh…what do you…do all day?” 

“Come,” Spentarr said, standing suddenly. “Teach you. Make water.”

He paused at the exit to his tiny domicile. 

“You walk? Stand up?”

“Uh…let’s find out.”

Raph set his cup down, and shakily got to his feet. His legs were still cramped from dehydration, but his dizziness and nausea were gone. 

“Lead on MacDuff,” he said, gesturing at the door. 

“Spentarr.”

“Yeah, yeah. Spentarr. Got it.” 

They stepped outside, and the instant heat and brightness from the sun were an all-out assault. Raph grunted out a cuss, and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, waiting for them to adjust. Spentarr said nothing, just turned and waited for him. When he could finally squint his eyes open, he followed silently. 

Around the other side of the clay domicile there were several large stills, condensation drops fogging up the clear surface, occasionally sliding lazily down the side, leaving a trail in its wake like a snail.

“Waste water,” Spentarr said pointing at one. “Water from air,” he added, his finger indicating the other two. He pointed to what appeared to be a large plastic rectangle, with a mirrored side. Tiny yellow-green shoots were pressed up against the lid. “Plant.”

Without further explanation he continued striding away. Raph gave the set-up a precursory glance, and followed along. Spentarr stopped again and pointed to what looked suspiciously like a beehive stuck on the outside of his house. What issued forth however weren’t bees, but -

Raph gasped involuntarily, and turned it into a cough, before he remembered he didn’t have anybody to look macho for. Still, the creepy crawlies occasionally slipping out of the hive and back into it were the stuff of his nightmares…something like a cross between a scorpion and a millipede, they had shiny black carapaces that glinted purple in the sun, and way, way too many legs, so many legs, legs scuttling and wriggling - 

Raph struggled with a renewed wave of nausea, and scratched an imaginary itch on his arm. 

“Protein,” Spentarr said, pointing placidly.

The nausea intensified. 

“Yeah, I’m not dying here,” he gritted through his teeth. 

“No die,” Spentarr said, shaking his head calmly. He pointed at the nest. “Protein.” Then to the rest of the set up. “Water. Plant.” 

“Yeah, not what I really…meant.” Raph blinked and wiped an arm across his forehead. His vision was beginning to swim again. 

“Inside now,” Spentarr said, making a shooing motion with his hands - hands Raph now noticed had little grabby hair things coming out the end that made him nervous. “No more sun. Too much sun, you.” 

“Yeah, yeah. I’m going,” Raph replied. “Hey, uh…so…that mirror - you think maybe I can borrow it?” 

_____

“This is most unwise, Donatello.” 

Kharra twirled the short metal staff experimentally and cracked her neck. It seemed from the way she handled it that she had some technique, but she was slow. Way too slow. And he had the reach.  

“Still. Worth the risk, I think,” he said, standing calmly in wait. 

He noted Kharra had addressed him by name, and not “the alien,” or “turtle,” or “Earthling.”

It was supposed to be just the three of them in the dojo, Jhanna, Kharra, and Don - but nothing stays private on a ship, and soon all the crew who could finagle their way out of duty were gathered around the periphery of the room to observe. Don couldn’t be sure, but he thought he’d seen Klaxor with a pad and paper talking to some sailors…spacers? Sailors? At any rate, he had a feeling credits were changing hands.

Of course, they probably didn’t call it a dojo, he reflected…Don scanned the room - he’d certainly never been in a dojo like this. It was immaculately clean and brightly lit, for one thing. Antiseptic white walls, with various neatly organized weapons racks, and actual mats underfoot. He pressed his toes down to feel the thickness - he could practically sleep on them. But as nice as it was, his loyalty to home and hearth somewhat soured him on his sleek, modern surroundings.

It just wasn’t a dojo without the smell of incense, shadows to hide in, and the jolting sensation of of rug burn and failure when you screw up.

Kharra cleared her throat, and he was snapped back to the present. She gave him a pitying smirk and shook her head, giving her staff another showy twirl. “I will go easy on you.”

“Thanks,” Don replied, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet and shaking each leg out. He didn’t know what Omatran fighting style was, and didn’t want to take anything for granted. 

Kharra held her staff out stiffly at her side, and tapped it on the mat once. The room got very quiet.

“I salute my opponent.”

Don bowed out of habit.  _ “Onegai shimasu.” _

Lunging forward, Kharra planted the end of her staff and vaulted towards him with a kick. He side-stepped it neatly, and sank into a ready position. 

She stared at him incredulously. 

“You evade like a coward!” she accused, with a wounded expression. 

“Like a ninja,” Don replied, twirling his bo. 

Scowling, Kharra set her staff spinning as well, and advanced. Don retreated again, ducking quickly to his right, and left, observing her technique. Very precise, but as he suspected - too slow. Also, lacking in spontaneity…she fought carefully, by the book - a bit like himself when he was a kid, actually. It made him wonder what she’d be like ten or so years from now.

He leapt away from a leg sweep she telegraphed from a mile away, and did a handspring to the side, trotting backwards out of her range again.

Kharra turned to Jhanna, and held an accusing arm out in Donatello’s direction, an indignant expression on her face. Jhanna simply shrugged and smiled. 

“Is this how all Earthlings fight?” Kharra goaded, turning back to face Don. “Running away?” 

“It’s always an option,” Don echoed his father’s own words, “until it’s not.” 

Kharra’s scowl tightened, and she launched herself at him again. This time, he allowed her to connect, blocking three or four strikes, before hooking his ankle behind hers, setting her stumbling backwards. 

There was a frisson of murmurs and laughter amongst the crew. Kharra turned to glare at them and it was immediately silenced. Furiously, she unzipped the jacket of her uniform, and shrugged out of it one arm at a time, throwing it aside to reveal what seemed like a plain white tank. Don had to admit, her blue arms were nicely sculpted - this was clearly someone who put in a lot of hours of work, maybe even prided herself on her fighting - 

_ “Frell.” _

Don glanced over at Klaxor, who was ogling with rapt admiration. They made eye contact and she grinned and shrugged sheepishly. 

_ “AAAAH!”  _

Don blocked the strike at the last minute, snapped back to the present. 

_ Okay. No more distractions. _

Don finally allowed himself to go on the offensive, unleashing a quick kata and sweeping Kharra’s legs, landing her flat on her back. 

A cry of surprise went up from the assembled crew members, and a few even stomped their feet, in what Don assumed was some kind of applause.

Don sank immediately into a ready stance, waiting respectfully while Kharra regained her feet. 

She made eye contact with him and he immediately realized, with a sinking feeling, that he might have just made an enemy.

She charged again, and he blocked her every strike methodically. 

_ “Come on,” _ he found himself thinking, _ “mix it up. Don’t do the same thing over and over if it isn’t working. Think outside the box.”  _

He jumped, to avoid the foot sweep he had by now come to expect, but to his surprise, she jabbed him with the end of the staff in the shoulder instead. He stumbled backwards, but rolled with it, and ended in a crouch, unharmed. 

“That counts!” one of the crew members cried. “That totally counts!” 

“I dunno,” another replied. “That wasn’t exactly a  _ fall.”  _

Don allowed himself a grin. 

_ Okay, let’s have some fun.  _

Rolling forwards, he did one of Mikey’s capoeira break-dance spins, moving from his shell up to one hand, where he paired it with one of Leo’s fancy split-kick katas. Finally, while she was caught off-guard by the showboating, he jabbed Kharra in exactly the same place she had jabbed him, setting her firmly on her rump.

_ “OHHHHHHH!” _

Don resisted the urge to smile and wave to his new fans, but it was a close thing.

With a roar of outrage, Kharra flung herself immediately back into the battle, Don evading her just as easily as Raph in one of his tantrums, answering each wild swing with a clack of his bo, or the whuff of her staff through the air where he used to be.

“FIGHT ME!” she roared, “STAND AND DO BATTLE LIKE A WOMAN, YOU - ”

Don struck her once in each ankle, once on the shoulder, gave her a love tap in the breadbasket for good measure, and while she was winded, looped his bo under hers and popped it from her grasp. He spun it around the end of his own a few times, like a Devil’s Stick, and with a carefully timed flick, sent it flying across the room, where it landed on the rack next to the others. A little off-center, so he docked himself some points for that - but it didn’t seem to matter to the assembled crew, where complete and utter pandemonium had erupted. Crew members were jumping up and down, screaming, punching one and other. Klaxor couldn’t count the fistfuls of credits shoved her way fast enough. 

Kharra gaped at the weapons rack and then back at him, her jaw hanging open. 

Don held up a hand to silence the riotous crew. Then, he held his bo out stiffly at his side, and tapped it on the mat. 

“I salute my opponent,” he said firmly. He bowed deeply.  _ “Arrigato gozaimasu.”  _

He turned to face Captain Jhanna. 

“Captain,” he said, firmly. “I respectfully request to join the away team going to the surface of B-612.”

Everyone turned to the Captain, waiting for the answer.

In response, Jhanna strolled casually over to the weapons rack, running a deep blue hand over it fondly…and picking up a couple of short sword-looking things. 

“Nimtarri blades,” she announced, giving them an experimental swish. She sank into a deep, elegant crouch.

“Why don’t you pick on somebody your own size?” she purred. 

Smirking, Kharra grabbed her uniform jacket off the mat and joined her fellow crew members for the show. A knot of hastily whispering spacers was issuing rapid instructions to Klaxor, who was scribbling furiously.

“I - uh - I mean - ”

“Klaxor,” Jhanna barked suddenly. The knot of gamblers looked up guiltily. “My crew puts all its money on Donatello.” 

There was an awkward silence.

“Um…Captain?…”

“All of them. All of it,” she said, her cobalt eyes piercing Donatello’s. Her pink tongue snaked out to lick her chops in anticipation, and Don shuddered involuntarily. 

“Hehehe!” Don giggled stupidly, immediately cursing himself. “I mean, you don’t know that I’ll - I’m sure you could -  _ WOAH!” _

Don was put immediately on the defensive as Jhanna attacked, blades flashing. He blocked mostly out of instinct, alarmed as the blade carved a sizable nick into his favorite (and currently,  _ only _ ) bo. She backed him clear up to the wall, and he blocked her strike to this throat desperately.

“Three years of combat training you said?” Don asked suspiciously, using a not-insignificant amount of strength to hold her at bay.

“Three years is the  _ minimum,” _ Jhanna smiled, her teeth gleaming white and predatory and a bit too close for comfort. “But I’m something of a hobbyist.” 

She made to head butt him, but as she pulled back to do so, Don used the opportunity to shift their balance, ducking out of her grip and hastily scrambling away. 

With a fierce growl of satisfaction, she launched herself at him again, and they were off to the races. 

She was good -  _ really _ good. Unlike Kharra, she fought with spontaneity and efficiency, with quick, elegant strikes, varying her rhythm, making him work for it…Don found himself smiling in spite of himself, a prickle of sweat starting at the back of his neck. It had been so long since he and his brothers had sparred together…he didn’t even realize he missed it, had missed the challenge - 

“Ow!” 

He shook his hand out, and examined the small nick there, a few beads of blood pooling slowly.

“Are you alright?” Jhanna asked, stopping immediately. “I didn’t expect you to - ”

He tapped the end of his bo on her foot smartly in retaliation, sending her hopping backwards. She shook it out experimentally and winced before setting it down again. He grinned, twirled his bo around his neck and sank into a crouch again. She shook her head and pointing a finger at him in reproach. 

“Naughty.”

“First blood,” Don congratulated. “Nicely done.”

“Try and return the favor, won’t you?” she goaded. 

With a high-pitched, cat-like yowl she charged, doing a zig-zag feint before engaging again, Don pivoting away from the blades and batting her attacks away by her wrists to avoid more damage to his bo.

He decided to press in close, to avoid giving her room to swing the blades. Allowing her to come in close on the next attack, he deflected it and then advanced, trying to hook his ankle behind hers as he had done to Kharra, but apparently she was ready for him, as she stepped  _ through _ his legs, pressing against him hip to hip, his bo trapped in the hilt of her weapons, both rendered useless by the close quarters. They grappled for a moment, trying to push the other off balance or free their weapons enough to strike.

“Donatello,” she purred, her breath close enough to puff on his jaw. “It seems you’re trying to get between my legs?”

His face flushed with molten fire and he knew not even his green complexion could save him from an obvious scarlet blush.

“I - uh - ” 

That’s all he had time to get out, however, as with a powerful  _ kiai, _ she hooked her arm through his and twisted at the waist, throwing him entirely off balance, and shoving him fiercely to the mat. 

It was not nearly as soft as he had first estimated. 

The wind knocked from him, he looked up to find her straddling him, the edge of her blade hovering at his chin.

He couldn’t help but smile back. 

“Since my crew has so much free time on their hands for gambling,” she announced loudly, still staring him down, “I assume you all have time for janitorial duty.” 

There was a very muffled, “Yes, Captain.”

“Excuse me?” she asked, cupping a hand to her ear.

_ “Yes, Captain!”  _

“You can have your money back once this entire ship sparkles like a Krassian diamond.” 

“Aww,” Klaxor whined softly. 

“And no more gambling on my ship.” 

“Yes, Captain,” they all chorused.

“Dismissed.”

Finally, Jhanna released him with an elegant flourish, stood, and offered her hand, as the crew filed out of the dojo. Donatello was grateful, as a bit longer in that position could have made the situation more than a little embarrassing.

“You fight well,” she praised, mirth dancing in her eyes. 

“Likewise. Obviously.”

“Next time don’t get distracted,” Klaxor grumbled as she stomped over, tailed by a very disgruntled looking Kharra. “We coulda been rich.” 

“I trust you have an accurate accounting and can return everyone’s money?” Captain Jhanna admonished.

“Yeah, yeah,” Klaxor pouted. At a pointed nudge from Ensign Kharra however, she amended to a more conciliatory “Yes, Captain Jhanna.” 

“Good.”

“So…the away team?” Don prompted. 

Jhanna shook her head in disbelief. “You were not lying. You  _ are _ a stubborn one.” 

Don didn’t reply, just waited her out. The smile faded from her face, and she took a deep sigh.

“Yes. You may join us. I had only hoped to spare you, if what we found was…unpleasant.” 

“Thank you,” Donatello said, sincerely. “This is something I need to do.”

“We’ll make landfall in a few hours,” Jhanna said. “Is your wound alright? Do you require care?”

“Hm? Oh, this?” Don said, remembering his cut. “No, it’s - ”

He interrupted himself as Jhanna carefully took him by the wrist and turned his hand over to examine it. 

“Mm. It’s not deep,” Jhanna assessed. 

“N - yeah, it’s, it’ll the…it’s fine,” Don replied eloquently, swallowing hard. 

Jhanna smiled up at him through her lashes. 

_ Oh crap. She knows.  _

“Go clean up,” she said, releasing him and giving her head a toss that send her gorgeous braids slinking over her shoulder. “I’ll send Kharra to collect you when it’s time to go to the launch bay. Ensign.” 

Before Ensign Kharra could pass by, however, Don put a hand on her arm. 

“Thank you for the fight. I learned a lot.” 

Kharra eyed his green hand on her arm, until he sheepishly removed it. When she looked up, however, there was some begrudging respect in her eyes. 

“Well fought,” she muttered, and followed Jhanna out of the room. 

Don and Klaxor stood alone in the dojo for a moment. 

“So…are the Ensign’s arms really as muscular as they looked, because - 

“Klaxor.”

“What’d Mikey call it? ‘The gun show?’ She has an impressive ‘gun show.’”

“Klaxor…”

“I would do sex stuff to her.”

_ “Klaxor!” _

“Don’t worry! You can do sex stuff to the Captain. More gun show for me.” 

Don laughed helplessly, and gave Klaxor’s head a friendly push as he headed for the door. 

“Come on.” 

“Don likes Captain Jhaaaaaannaaa,” she sing-songed, taking three steps for every one of his. “Don likes Captain Jhaaaannaaaaa…”

“Klaxor…enough, okay? Let it go.”

“Hey, you fight good. After this we should go to Stump Asteroid and go pro, we could make a fortune.”

_____

The sun was beginning to fade, but still Raph held the mirror above his head, waggling it slowly back and forth. He’d gone in shifts, turning 90 degrees to point it in a different direction each hour. He was beginning to feel like those sign guys on the corner. “Free Soda with Every Six Inch Sub” spinning around and around. 

“Oh maaaan,” Mikey had groaned, watching from the sewer grate, “that guy is so cool!” 

Raph’s heart tugged at the memory of his little brother, and the mirror dropped in his grip a little. 

“Mirror is for plant,” Spentarr said, disgruntled. “Too much sun you. Why do this?”

“Just…a little longer, okay?” Raph said over his shoulder, resuming his steady back-and-forth mirror waggling. 

“Every day you do.” 

“Yeah,” Raph snapped. “Every day I do. Okay? Every day. For the rest of forever. Go inside.” 

Spentarr regarded him in silence, then stepped forward and put a creepy feeler claw on Raph’s shoulder. He tried not to shudder. 

“They no come, Raffel. No person come. Is only Spentarr, many, many long.”

Raph lowered the mirror. Just to give his arms a break. 

“Now is Spentarr and Raffel. Is okay. Make water. Make plant. Eat protein. Is not bad.”

Raphael considered this. 

“No,” he admitted. “It’s not bad. But…it’s not enough. Without my brothers - without my family, I - Besides, I showed up. Right? So if I showed up, maybe - ”

He cut himself off and suddenly scanned the horizon line. He could have sworn he heard something. 

“Did you? Did you hear that?” he asked, taking a few hasty steps forward. 

“Is air maybe,” Spentarr said. “Air moving?”

Raph froze, listening with all his might. 

“Too much sun you,” Spentarr said. “Water inside.” 

“Yeah,” Raph finally said, slumping. “Yeah, you’re right. I just - ”

Now there was no mistaking it. They looked at each other in shock. 

“Is person,” Spentarr said.

“HEY!” Raph called, holding the mirror up and spinning around, not knowing where the sound was coming from. “HEY! HERE! OVER HERE! WE’RE HERE!”

“…aaaph!” 

His heart seemed to stop in his chest. The voice was far away, and faint, but he knew they had just said his name. There were only a handful of people within light years of this rock who knew his name. 

_ “Raaaaph!”  _

“Donnie?” he whispered. 

He staggered out into the sand frantically, trying to hold the mirror up with one hand and shield his eyes with the other. 

_ “DONNIE?!” _ he bellowed. 

_ “RAPH?!” _

_ “DONNIE! _ Where - I CAN’T  _ SEE _ YOU!” Raph shouted, his voice sounding high-pitched and frantic, even to his own ears.  _ “DONNIE!!” _

He waved the mirror frantically, turning in all directions. 

“Too hard!” Spentarr scolded. “No break mirror!” 

_ “DONNIE!!” _

_ “RAPH!” _

Finally Raph felt like he could pinpoint the direction of the voice, and when he turned to look over his shoulder, sure enough, there was a speeder on the horizon, kicking up a cloud of dust behind it as it headed their way. There were a couple of tall blue chicks in it, but he thought he recognized Klaxor as well, and standing in the passenger seat, waving frantically with both arms, occasionally grabbing the side when he lost his balance - 

“Donnie,” Raph whispered. 

And it didn’t make any sense, of course, especially given that they were in a speeder and he was on foot and even at sunset it was a million degrees, but Raph couldn’t have stopped himself if he tried, his burning feet frantically eating up the sand as he ran out to meet them, the speeder getting larger and larger until Don also leapt out of it, scrabbling on all fours until he righted himself, running, running full tilt until finally, after way too long, they crashed into each other full speed, grappled their arms around each other and hit the sand. 

Raph couldn’t stop laughing (laughter is what he was doing, that was his story, and he was sticking to it) and Don kept trying to squeeze the life out of him while they struggled to get onto their knees in the pink sand. 

“We’re gonna find them, Raph,” was the first thing Don said. His olive green hand were crushing the sides of Raph’s face. “I swear. We’re gonna  _ find _ them. It’s gonna be okay.” 

“Yeah,” Raph choked. “Yeah, Donnie, okay. Get a grip.”

Don laughed and wiped tears with a gritty forearm and pulled Raph into another fierce hug. 

_ “Fuck,” _ he cursed vehemently over Raph’s shoulder. “I have sand  _ everywhere.” _

Raph started to laugh again (yep, definitely laughing not the other thing) and he closed his eyes. 

  
_ Hang in there, Mikey. Hang in there, Leo. We’re comin’ for ya. _

[](http://imageshack.com/a/img924/3314/7o6Yrp.png)

[](http://imageshack.com/a/img924/4152/IIYz9n.png)


	5. Chapter 5

Don was in no hurry to let go, and for once it seemed Raph was on the same page. Don was distracted, however, by a dull electronic whine. He looked up from the embrace to find Raph’s bug-like friend leveling what appeared to be a weapon in their direction. Wait, not at them...over their heads, at Jhanna and Kharra, who held their hands up in a universal gesture of “we’re unarmed,” a look of alarm carefully suppressed on their faces. Klaxor glanced between the Omatrans and the rifle a few times before taking a few careful, shuffling steps to the side.    
  
“Um. Raph?” Don said, patting him urgently on the shoulder.   
  
Raph finally let go of Don and took in the scene unfolding around them. 

“Spentarr?” Raph asked incredulously. “What’re you doing? This is him! This is my brother!” 

“NO BLUE ONES,” Spentarr shouted. “YOU GO.” 

  
“I am Captain Jhanna of the Omatran flagship Discovery. This is Ensign Kharra. We mean you no harm,” Jhanna insisted. “We only came to help this one find his brother.”   
  
Don tried not to feel wounded at being called “this one.” 

“Raffel, NOT go with blue ones,” Spentarr begged, shifting from foot to foot in agitation. “You go with blue ones, put you in the dirt. Never see another day.” 

“Uhhh, Don?” Raph said, eyes darting between Spentarr and Jhanna. “Looks like your friends and my friends are  _ not  _ friends.”

“Let’s all...try and calm down a bit,” Don suggested, staggering to his feet from the sand and trying to brush it from his knees. 

“Blue ones go. Green ones stay here, with Spentarr. ” 

“That ain’t happening,” Raph growled. “What the hell, man? I thought we were cool.” 

“Not  _ ‘cool,’” _ Spentarr hissed furiously. His jaw made an unnerving clicking sound when he was angry. “No  _ ‘cool’ _ with blue ones!” 

“Captain,” Kharra spoke softly. “Is there even any Omatran presence on this planet?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Jhanna replied. She took a step forward and Don fretted as Spentarr raised the rifle-looking thing higher. Jhanna paid it no attention.

“We are strangers here,” Jhanna announced, clearly. “This is our first visit to your planet.”

“LIE,” Spentarr snarled. “You see, Raffel, blue ones  _ lie!”  _

Kharra seemed about to step forward, but Jhanna instinctively held her hand out to quash the impulse. Kharra scowled, and resumed her previous stance.    
  
“Where have you seen others that look like us?” Jhanna pressed. 

“Blue ones in the city. Blue ones take you, you no come back. Before, many like Spentarr. Now Spentarr alone. You try take us, but you NO TAKE Spentarr!  _ Kill _ you first! Kill  _ ME _ first!”    
  
His pincer-like appendages were trembling on the strange-looking weapon, and Don was just getting nervous enough to contemplate kicking it out of his grip when Jhanna spoke again.

“Alright,” Jhanna said, holding up her hands a bit higher and backing away. “We understand completely. Nobody is taking you anywhere.”

“The city,” Don interjected. “Which way is it? Maybe Mikey and Leo made their way there.” 

“Don’t know Mike Yan Lee-yoh,” Spentarr said, never taking his eyes off of Jhanna and Kharra. “No other green ones, just Raffel.”

“Still,” Don pressed, “we have to start somewhere. And that seems like our best option. Spentarr, please...which way to the city?”

Spentarr rocked back and forth on his feet, fiddling with his weapon like a kid with a security blanket, glancing between the brothers and the Omatran officers waiting a few yards away. Finally he lowered it, strode up close to the brothers, and leaned in conspiratorially.

“City that way,” he pointed. His jaw still clicked softly as he murmured. “Walk it, too long. But you have speeder. Few days maybe. Less on a big ship. But please -  _ not _ stay with blue ones. When you can, you leave  _ fast.  _ Yes?” 

“Um.”

Don hesitated, glancing back over his shoulder at the Omatrans, waiting just out of earshot. Jhanna and Kharra looked on stoic and stone-faced, Klaxor with a dubious expression of concern. 

“Yes,” Raph promised quietly. “We’ll ditch ‘em as soon as we can.”

Don looked at his brother in surprise. 

“Well isn’t that the plan?” Raph hissed in annoyance. “To get  _ home?” _

“Well - yeah, I mean, obviously…” Don stammered. 

_ But… _

Raph was already turning to address the Omatrans though.

“There’s a city. He says it’s a few days thataway,” Raph announced, pointing to the horizon. “Can we hitch a ride?” 

“A few  _ days?” _ Kharra murmured, glancing at Jhanna.    
  
“Of course,” Jhanna replied firmly. Kharra hid a grimace and lowered her eyes.    
  
“My friend, that’s obviously an older translator you’re wearing,” Jhanna pressed, addressing Spentarr. “If you like, we would be happy to provide you with -

Spentarr raised the rifle again and fired once at the ground, a blue energy blast spraying pink sand onto Jhanna and Kharra’s feet, and creating a small gray puff of smoke to waft on the breeze. 

“I think that’s our cue,” Klaxor said, already nervously backing to the cruiser. 

“We have offended you,” Jhanna said, formally. “Please accept our apologies. We are leaving now.” 

Jhanna nodded at Don and Raph before turning casually and leading the way back to the speeder with an unhurried, regal gait. 

Raph turned to his rescuer, his mouth twisted in conflict.

“Spentarr...”

“Go,” he lamented sadly.

“You coulda come with us,” Raph said, frustration evident in his voice. “You didn’t have to be stuck out here in - 

“Will miss you Raffel,” Spentarr interrupted, his angular face weary and resigned. 

“I...I’m gonna miss you too, Spentarr.” Raph reached for his bug-like claw thing and shook it, to Don’s surprise. Raph was normally much more squeamish around giant bug-like things. Don reflected it was probably odd that they’d encountered such a broad variety of giant bug-like things that he could thus establish a pattern of behavior.    
  
“Thank you,” Raph said. “For saving my life.” 

“Still trying,” Spentarr replied cryptically. “You no want save. Be careful, Raffel.”    
  


“Yeah. You too,” Raph said, before turning and walking towards the speeder.   
  


“Well...it was nice to meet you, Spentarr,” Don lied politely. “Thank you for taking care of my brother.” 

Spentarr regarded Don in stony, distrustful silence.

“Um. ‘Kay, bye.”

Don trotted back through the sand to catch up to Raph. 

“Donnie, who the hell  _ are _ these broads?” Raph hissed softly.

“They’re on the level, Raph,” Don said, feeling the strange urge to defend his newly introduced captor-slash-rescuers in the wake of Spentarr’s damning reception. “They’ve had plenty of opportunity to hurt me and have been nothing but helpful.”    
  
“Yeah,” Raph said, though he sounded anything but convinced.   
  
“I’d never have  _ found _ you without them,” Don pointed out flatly.    
  
Raph didn’t reply right away.    
  
“Yeah...okay. Let’s just...find the others and go home.”    
  
Don nodded - he knew a huge part of Raph’s unease was still being separated from their oldest and youngest brothers. Now that they had found each other, the urge to find Mike and Leo was even stronger. 

“Hey, ugly,” Klaxor greeted as they approached the speeder. “Long time no see.”

“Donnie,” Raph said, climbing into the speeder. “The lady’s talkin’ to you.” 

Don smirked, shaking his head. Some things never changed. 

“Raffel, was it?” Jhanna asked politely. Donnie noticed her tone seemed a bit stiff, and she didn’t make eye contact, but focused on piloting the speeder. 

“Raphael, actually. My friends call me Raph.” 

“Pleased to meet you, Raph,” she replied crisply. “Strap in, we’ll get you back to the ship and have our doctors give you a once over.”    
  


“Thanks, but I’m good. I could do with a shower, though.”

  
As the cruiser sped across the pink sand, they all soon lapsed into silence. Don glanced over his shoulder at the lone, mauve figure, fading further and further into the background, standing outside his lonely hut, and he couldn’t shake a feeling of disquiet. 

_____

After what felt like far too long, the chime to their new cell sounded. Don and Klaxor hopped to their feet as the door slid open and Ensign Kharra ushered Raph in. He was freshly clean, emerald skin glowing and free of the pink dust they’d just left behind, and Don recognized the scent of the soap they provided in the showers. He looked much more like himself, with his mask, leathers, and sai restored, which the Omatrans had helpfully salvaged from the wreckage of the Tang Shen.

“Your new quarters to your satisfaction?” Kharra asked formally.

“Yes,” Don replied quickly, before Raph could find something to complain about. “Thank you for letting us stay together, Ensign Kharra.” 

“It wasn’t my idea,” she replied cryptically. She paused awkwardly, as if reconsidering. “But...I’m glad you’re comfortable.” 

Don wasn’t sure what to make of that, so he just nodded. 

“Hi.” 

They all looked at Klaxor, surprised. 

“Hello?” Ensign Kharra replied cautiously.

“Hi there,” Klaxor repeated, trying to sound suave. She put one hand on the table to lean casually. It was slightly too high for her to do so convincingly, so she bent her arm and tried leaning on her elbow, found that was even worse, and went back to her previous position. To compensate, she balled up her other hand and put it on her hip.

Kharra observed this performance, gave Don a blank look, and left. The door slid shut and sealed behind her.

“Wow,” Raph smirked.  

“I  _ know!” _ Klaxor cried out in sudden anguish. “What  _ was _ that?!”

“That was  _ terrible,” _ he congratulated.

“That’s not  _ me, _ I don’t  _ do _ that, who  _ DOES _ that?!”   
  


“I really liked the ‘here is my handle, here is my spout’ thing.” 

“I don’t know what that means,” Klaxor groaned, sinking into the chair and resting her forehead on the edge of the table. “I need to sit down for a few...days.”

“I’ll leave you to it,” Raph said, turning to Donnie. “Speaking of pathetic - what’s the deal with your girlfriend?” 

“Huh?” Don stammered, his cheeks heating.

“Smurfette. The Captain. What’s her story?”

“She’s not my  _ girlfriend, _ Raph,” Don spat, hating how easily a conversation with Raph tended to degenerate straight back to their teenage years. “And don’t  _ call _ her that. The Discovery is the Omatran flagship, her name is Jhanna, and she’s the Captain.”

“Yeah, weirdly I was able to piece that together when she introduced herself as Captain Jhanna, of the flagship Discovery,” Raph drawled. “I mean, what do we know about her? What’s her angle? Why is she helping us?”

“I dunno!” Don huffed, spreading his hands. “Because she’s  _ nice?”  _

“Whatever,” Raph said, rolling his eyes. “I got top bunk.”

He nudged Don aside and climbed past him without preamble.

“Y’know...I coulda left your ass in the desert,” Don groused dryly. 

“Coulda, shoulda, woulda,” Raph’s voice came from the top bunk, already lazy-sounding with relaxation. “Man, a real  _ bed.  _ Feels good. Y’know?”

“Yes,” Don said, trying not to sound too huffy as he stretched out as well. “They’ve treated us very  _ nicely.” _

“So how many days to get to the city?”

“Spentarr said ‘a few.’” 

“I know what Spentarr said. But he said it’d be faster in a big ship.” 

“I don’t know, Raph,” Don replied, annoyed that he was always expected to have the answers. “We got here pretty quick, so…” 

“So you have no idea.” 

“Yeah,” Don replied, taking a slow, even breath. “I have no idea.” 

“Hm. Well, maybe after we get some R&R you can give me the nickel tour.” 

“We’re not really...supposed to be just wander around, Raph.”

“Why not?” 

“Uh…”

Don realized he’d never really gotten around to explaining their unique status on board.

“Why not, _Donnie?”_   
  
Raph’s face abruptly appeared hanging over the bunk. 

“Well...it’s a working ship,” Don hemmed. “You know, they’re...busy. And…”

_ “And?” _

“Aaand,” Don continued. “And we...are... _ technically _ ...prisoners.” 

“Oh cripes,” Raph groaned, his face disappearing again, the bed frame groaning as he flung himself back.  _ “Jesus, _ Donnie!”

“Raph, they plucked me out of the jaws of death, okay?! We’ve got warrants out for all of us, it’s not like I really had a choice!” 

“No, of course,” Raph griped. “Letting the pretty blue alien take you hostage was  _ clearly _ your only move.” 

“I was unconscious, you  _ jerk!” _ Don snapped, climbing out of bed and standing up to yell at Raph properly. “I almost  _ died! _ And in case you forgot, the ‘pretty blue alien’ and I just rescued  _ you _ about  _ five minutes _ ago! Remember all the  _ sand _ , and the _ crying?”  _

Raph’s cheeks went a bit red, and he sat up to yell back properly. 

“Of  _ course _ she helped find me, genius, she wants to collect the whole set! She’s hunting us like Easter eggs so she can fling us to the Triceratons and collect her bounty!” Raph snarled. 

“I miss Mikey.”

Raph and Don stopped arguing abruptly and looked over where Klaxor sat, head still miserably pressed on the table.

“He’d know what to say,” she added forlornly. 

“Yeah,” Don agreed softly. “Yeah, he would. He’d make some dumb joke. And then Leo would weigh the options and make a plan.” 

He turned and addressed the next bit to Raph directly.

“But that’s why we’re not giving up. We’re going to find Mikey and Leo. And the  _ Omatrans _ are going to  _ help _ us do that.”

Raph was still scowling, but he broke eye contact first and nodded, somewhat abashed. 

“Soon as we find them though…”

“Yes, okay? Soon as we find them, it’s  _ ‘ninja vanish,’” _ Don replied stiffly. 

“Yeah, alright,” Raph muttered sheepishly. “M’just gonna get some sleep.” 

“Good idea.”

Don jabbed his thumb at the button by the door and waited. After a moment, there was a soft tone.

“Bridge?” Kharra’s voice came from the speaker, sounding annoyed. 

“It’s Don. I’d like to use the dojo. Um, training hall. Please.” 

Don waited for what seemed like a really long time, uncomfortably aware of Raph listening for the answer. If she said no, it would only emphasize the degree to which they were actual prisoners on board. Raph might even plan to do something stupid, which would - 

“Fine. Be quick, please.” 

“Thank you,” Don replied. 

With a soft buzz and a swish, the door slid open. 

“Back in a few,” Don muttered, and stepped out into the hall. The door swished shut behind him. 

“The Omatrans...” Klaxor ventured, timidly. “They wouldn’t just hand us over for the bounty. Don...they kinda respect him, y’know?” 

“Hmph.”

Klaxor scowled at Raph’s shell. 

“Maybe  _ you  _ could kinda respect him,” she muttered under her breath.

Raph rolled over to glare at her. She just stared at the tabletop, carefully ignoring his baleful eye. 

Finally Raph sighed and scooted onto his shell, propping one arm under his head. 

“I  _ do. _ I just...know him too well. That’s all.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Raph shook his head at the ceiling.

“Don...he’s a lot like Mikey in some ways...he always wants to see the best in people. He’s too damn trusting.” 

“Yeah, he really is,” Klaxor admitted, to Raph’s surprise. She shrugged at his expression, and hooked a thumb at herself. “Thief.” 

Raph nodded. “Yeah. Exactly. I mean, all you had to do was introduce yourself, and boom - insta-besties. I mean, not that I’m complaining...”

Klaxor smiled, and shook her head. 

“He’s always got good intentions, y’know? But...not everybody else does. And...when people disappoint him, it’s...hard on him.”    
  
Raph rolled over and adjusted his pillow. 

“Believe me, I know.” 

_____

Next to Mikey, Don was the one most likely to want to weasel out of morning training. Unlike Mikey, however, Don had finesse. 

Instead of hitting the snooze alarm three times, whining through breakfast and pouting through warm-ups, Don knew how to play it cool. And being the resident expert on...well,  _ everything _ made it pretty easy to spin some very convincing bullshit about his latest experiment and just how  _ crucial _ the timing was - and then nurse a steaming hot cup of coffee alone in his lab, dicking around on the internet while the centrifuge did its thing, occasionally kicking the box of spare parts under his desk for effect.    
  
Sometimes he had a feeling Master Splinter was wise to him, but since he didn’t abuse it often and did so much else for the family, chose to let it slide - perhaps even considered it payment for services rendered; a few extra ‘vacation days’ for the family doctor, engineer, mechanic, electrician, etc, etc. Or maybe, as a father, he understood Donnie’s occasional need for alone time to restore the tidy, peaceful hum of the gears in his mind.   
  
Or maybe Master Splinter actually just believed him. That was the thing about the truly great liars - 95% of the time, they tell the truth.

Now, out in space, so far from home and routine, Don actually found himself craving the grueling workout.   
  


He started his strength training as soon as he hit the dojo: push-ups, squats, planks, then moving on to flips, handstands, and only after his muscles were already burning did he begin his katas.    
  
Without a sparring partner, he could let his mind drift, lost in the same familiar patterns and strikes he’d been perfecting since he was a boy, for as long as he could remember. And he found his mind drifting to good liars and bad liars, and the question that had been gnawing at him ever since the desert.

Which one was Jhanna? A good liar? Or a bad liar?    
  
Or was she like him - trustworthy 95% of the time, but with that quiet sneaky streak...the one that knocked Leo unconscious and shoved him in a life pod...or the one suggesting a friendly wager, while casually failing to mention he had attained fifth dan in multiple martial arts disciplines by the time he was a teenager.

He hated to think that the Omatrans were selling them a bill of goods - he wanted to believe that they truly wanted to help them, wanted to believe - 

He sighed, and paused his kata to lean on his bo. That was just the problem. Don was a scientist - and  _ wanting _ to believe a conclusion was true was, in a word, unscientific. He had to consider the evidence. 

Established: She could have left him to die in the vacuum of space. But she hadn’t.    
  
He did a back handspring and struck at an imaginary foe. 

Counterpoint: She could have just been rescuing him for the bounty.    
  
He twirled the bo around his neck, spun to face the imaginary ninja creeping up behind him, and brought the bo smashing down upon his invisible skull.    
  
But going to find his brother? Taking them to hunt for Mike and Leo? Surely the cost in this goose chase outweighed the benefit? There had to be an easier way to make a buck, even out here in the back end of space. 

He swept the imaginary opponent’s feet, tucked and rolled backwards, and did a fierce mule kick to the Purple Dragon behind him, using the bo for leverage.

So: Either there was some additional, unforeseen benefit to rounding them up and handing them over to the Triceratons...or the Captain was just really  _ nice.  _ __  
__  
But diverting military resources? Putting the entire crew of the Discovery at their disposal just to be “nice?”    
  
And what was with Spentarr’s reaction to the Omatrans’ arrival? He had tried to discount it...tried to tell himself that Spentarr was mistaken, confusing them for some other aliens, maybe - but his reaction was so vehement, and so certain...then again, Captain Jhanna and Ensign Kharra seemed to be so certain that there was no Omatran presence on B-612…   
  
...or was that just a convenient lie, too?    
  


Don set the end of the bo down, put his hands on top of it, and rested his chin there, panting. He’d worked up a good sweat, but was no closer to a real answer. His reverie was short-lived however, as the door chime sounded, and the panel slid open to reveal Captain Jhanna. 

“Captain!” Don spat, wishing immediately that he wasn’t so sweaty, and feeling oddly caught out for having just been thinking about her. “This is a surprise.”    
  


“Please, don’t stop on my account,” Jhanna smiled. As always, he was struck by how white and perfect her teeth were against the deep blue of her skin, and his stupid heart did a little flutter that he vehemently quashed.    
  


_ Damnit.  _

  
Raph really could read him like a book. This was no good for anyone.  

“I’m sorry, Ensign Kharra told me not to be too long and I lost track of time,” he confessed. “I’ll go.”

“What a pity,” Jhanna said, stepping into the room so the door slid shut behind her. “I was enjoying the show.”    
  
“The show?...” 

Don glanced around the room, and then shook his head ruefully. Sure. Why wouldn’t there be surveillance cameras?

Wait, enjoying the show? 

He flinched as a towel struck him on the arm, and fumbled to catch it before it hit the floor. 

“A little jumpy tonight?” Jhanna teased. 

“Uh...yeah,” Don admitted, wiping down his neck and his brow before slinging the towel over his shoulder. “Just...doing some thinking.” 

Jhanna nodded slowly, her hands clasped loosely behind her back, as usual. 

“I’ve been thinking, too,” she said. “That reunion was...not quite how I pictured it.” 

“Heh. Yeah,” Don grinned, shifting his weight to the other foot. “A little more gunplay than anticipated.”

  
She strode over to the wall and examined a panel for a moment. The lights began to dim slightly, and Don wondered if she locking up for the night, when all of a sudden, the far wall just melted away, completely transparent, and in its place was the vast, impenetrable galaxy, billions upon billions of stars reaching out across time and space. 

“Oh  _ wow,” _ Don breathed. 

“I will admit: the view never gets old,” Jhanna smiled. She arranged her legs gracefully and sank neatly to the mat, lotus position, ramrod straight, her tail curling gracefully around her, tiny tuft at the end curling and then twitching flat against the mat, for all the world like Klunk’s.

“Come,” she ordered, indicating the mat next to her. “Sit with me.” 

Don wasn’t sure to what degree that was an order and not a suggestion, and found that not only did he not care, he rather enjoyed the ambiguity, a thought which made his face feel warm.    
  
So he sheathed his bo, took a knee, and settled himself in. 

For a while they stared out into the nothing. 

“Your brother’s friend. Spentarr,” she began, without preamble. “I don’t know why he has such animosity towards the Omatran people. I’ve been searching the Fleet database for hours, and can’t find any mention of Omatran military presence on B-612. I thought perhaps Omatran traders might have visited - but it’s a mining planet, and fossil fuels haven’t been used on Omatra in a hundred years - there’s nothing to _ trade _ here. I can’t imagine how he’d even  _ meet _ an Omatran, let alone form such an obvious hatred for us.”   
  
“Captain - 

“Then I thought, perhaps he encountered some other race of blue alien, and mistook us for them. But there are no other blue bipeds in this entire  _ system.  _ Unless of course you count birds, but...I hardly think an Omatran could be mistaken for a  _ bird.”  _   
  


“Captain,” Don insisted awkwardly. “You don’t owe me an explanation. You saved my life, my brother’s life, Klaxor - we are,  _ all  _ of us, very grateful.” 

“You’re wrong,” Jhanna said, firmly.    
  
Don’s stomach dropped. What did that mean? That she...didn’t save their lives? Was she planning to betray them after all?    
  
She didn’t meet his eyes, just continued to stare out into the wash of stars. 

“I  _ do _ owe you an explanation,” she finally clarified. “I’m just...not sure where to start.” 

Don looked at the starlight bathing the smooth, strong edge of her cheekbone and tried not to gulp. She turned to meet his eye, and he probably should have pretended to be looking somewhere else, but there wasn’t time before her eyes met his.

“How do stories begin on Earth?” she asked. 

“Um…all different ways, really…  _ ‘It was a dark and stormy night…’ ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…’  _ Heh. _ ‘Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene…’” _

Jhanna wrinkled her nose in confusion and looked back out into space, shaking her head slightly.

“That doesn’t help.” 

“But, well, um...” Don course-corrected, rubbing an imaginary itch on his arm. “Some of the simple ones...some of the  _ best _ ones start with... _ ‘once upon a time?’”  _ he ventured.

“Hmm.  _ ‘Once upon a time…’” _ she repeated. “Does it mean a time in the future? Or a time in the past?” 

“Well. Why don’t you start in the past, then bring us up to the present,” Don suggested. “Then...maybe we can figure out what happens next...”

_ “Together,”  _ his brain insisted.  _ “Say ‘together.’” _

But his mouth wouldn’t spit it out. For a while she didn’t reply...she seemed to be wrestling with whether to tell him or just make an excuse and leave. He was just beginning to think that she had decided on the latter, when finally: 

“Once upon a time...in the past,” Jhanna spoke quietly, “there was a family. A military family. Proud...not ruling caste, but...still high ranking. A mother, a father. Their eldest was a daughter, headstrong...stubborn...”    
  
She looked up at him wryly and pointed to her own face. “Blue.” 

Don laughed.    
  
“And...their youngest... a boy.” 

She paused to lick her lips. 

“So...you have a brother!” Don prompted. “What’s his name?” 

Jhanna stared down at the floor between them.   
  


“Jodhi.”    
  
The way it fell from her lips, carefully murmured around shards of glass, Don knew immediately that he was dead. And suddenly he already knew the rest of the story, already understood what she was trying to explain. But at the same time, he knew how important it was for her to be the one to tell it. 

“What was Jodhi like?” he asked gently.

Jhanna suddenly smiled wide...it seemed the wider she smiled the glassier her eyes got.

“Annoying. Handsome. Heh! Trouble and sunlight.” 

Don felt his own eyes start to sting.

“Yeah,” he said, a lump rising in his throat. “Little brothers are like that.” 

Jhanna cleared her throat.    
  
“I was ambitious. I wanted to be the first in the family to have my own command. Jodhi...he didn’t really care about the Fleet, he just wanted to build speeders and chase upper-caste tail, but...our parents.” 

“Mm,” Don nodded ruefully, thinking back to a particularly grueling childhood hour in the dojo, the bumps and bruises, the sweat, wiping tears, snot, and blood off his nose and picking himself up over and over again so his bigger, stronger, faster brothers could practice knocking him down again.    
  
Sometimes the family business chose you. Even if you’d rather build speeders.

“So. He studied engineering. And by the time he graduated...I had my own ship, and a convenient opening for a Ship’s Engineer.”    
  
She shook her head, her graceful features marred by sudden anger. 

“They were so  _ proud _ . So  _ relieved. _ I could keep an eye on him, keep him  _ safe.” _

Don didn’t know what to say, what kind of comfort he could offer. The thought of losing his brothers...the thought that right now Leo and Mikey were out there, God knows where, in what kind of condition…   
  
“We lost them in the Invasion,” Jhanna said flatly. 

“Invasion?”

“Stone warriors from Dimension X,” Jhanna explained. “Our parents died in the first wave - we weren’t even planetside. Nothing we could do but watch from space while our cities crumbled and burned.”    
  
Don shook his head slowly.    
  
“I was...blind with rage. I threw us into the fight at every opportunity, determined to make them pay, convinced I was honoring our parents’ memory. Eventually the Omatran fleet was able to drive them from our world. But our ship was heavily damaged. We lost many crew members. And...” 

“Jodhi,” Don murmured, wishing he knew something to say that wouldn’t be trite or flippant…

“Explosion,” Jhanna replied, her sentences getting shorter and shorter. “Engine room.”    
  
Her voice dropped even lower. 

“And I got a  _ promotion.”  _   
  
She suddenly turned and glared at Don with suspicion, sending shivers down his spine.   
  


“What do you say to that?” 

“What do - what do I  _ say?” _ Don stammered, caught entirely off guard. “I say...I’m sorry. I’m... _ so _ sorry, Jhanna.”   
  


Jhanna appraised him carefully, her expression gradually softening in curiosity.    
  
“You...apologize? Why?”   
  
Don shrugged awkwardly. “It’s...just what we say on Earth.”   
  
Jhanna nodded slightly, then turned to look at the stars again. Don followed suit and for a while they just stared in silence. 

“Most people say,  _ ‘It wasn’t your fault,’”  _ she said abruptly. She snorted and shook her head, still staring at the stars. “As if that made it tolerable. As if it were even  _ true.”  _ __  
__  
“Jodhi wouldn’t blame you,” Don insisted.   
  
Jhanna looked at him with a hungry, haunted expression. 

  
“My brother - Leo, my older brother - he blames himself when things go wrong,” Don hastily explained, twiddling his fingers together and wondering if he was speaking out of turn. His stomach turned unpleasantly at the thought that for all he knew, Leo was - 

“It’s hard putting people you love in harm’s way,” he blurted. “Our father put his trust in him, to keep us all safe. And we see how he struggles with it - balancing being a leader with being a brother, weighing the mission objective against the risk - it takes a toll. But...I think he forgets...we make our own choices, too. We trust him. And we  _ choose _ to follow him. Most of the time it works out, and sometimes...well, sometimes things just fall apart. But we would never blame him for that.” 

He paused to reconsider.   
  
“Well, Raph would.”

Jhanna huffed a soft laugh, to Donnie’s surprise.

“He is... _ interesting.  _ Raph.” 

“You noticed,” Don smirked.   
  
She smiled sheepishly. “For some reason, I assumed that all of your brothers would be like you.”    
  


Don laughed. “Far from it. No, we’re all surprisingly different, for having grown up together so closely.”    
  
He opened his mouth to say “Wait until you meet Mikey,” and then abruptly shut it, the constant low-level hum of horror briefly swelling again in volume, reminding him it was possible he might never see Mikey again.   
  
“You miss them,” Jhanna stated simply.    
  
He looked up and met her eyes. “Miss them” was so inadequate, and they both knew it...he began to comprehend, dimly, what she must be going through...like seeing a storm funnel way off in the distance and feeling a shudder of fear, without yet being truly able to understand its destructive power. He had no idea what to say to make it more bearable. And no idea how to stem the fear that that storm of grief on the horizon could become his new normal. Instead of making him less worried, finding Raph had only redoubled his need to have his family back together, to know that they were safe...what must it be like knowing that you could never have that again?

  
Jhanna’s expression became pained, and she looked away.   
  
“I thought I was  _ past  _ this,” she stated quietly. “I’m already eating into my crew’s scheduled leave. With each day that passes, I can feel them beginning to question my motives. At first it was easy to dismiss. But now I begin to wonder - am I still doing this for the right reasons?” 

“I’m sorry to make problems for you,” Don said, shoulders slumping.

Jhanna turned hastily and put a hand on his shoulder, which nearly sent him leaping out of his shell. 

“I don’t complain, Donatello. I am...trying to explain. I thought you might be wondering why I was helping you, questioning if I had ulterior, selfish motives. And I suppose now I’m asking myself the same thing.” 

“Well...I think Jodhi would be proud of you,” Don said, taking a risk and putting a comforting hand on her knee. “I would, if it was me.” 

“What do you mean? If it was you?”

Well, she hadn’t smacked his hand away, so he figured that was probably a good sign he hadn’t screwed up too badly yet.    
  


“My brothers and I, we’ve all had to deal with the idea that one day we might go on a mission and somebody won’t come back. But I know that if  _ I  _ was the one that didn’t come back...I’d want them to keep going. I wouldn’t want them to just give up.”

He looked up and Jhanna was staring at him with the strangest expression.

“Even if we find my brothers - it won’t bring Jodhi back,” he said gently. “But...helping other people - I think that’s a good way to honor someone you love, someone you miss.”    
  


She just kept staring into him with her piercing dark eyes. Was she getting closer? Or was he imagining it?    
  
“I mean...I’m not just saying that because I want you to keep helping us,” he laughed nervously. “I mean, I  _ do, _ of course, I - thank you, again, by the way, for - ”

But all his higher brain functions abruptly ceased as Jhanna leaned in and kissed him.    
  
There was a brief pause as his cylinders misfired, and then before his brain could ruin it with more thinking or talking, he was kissing her back urgently. He caressed her hair and the texture of her braids tickled his fingers and sent goosebumps down his arms. He was just wondering if aliens did tongue or if that’d be too weird when hers snaked against his and he made this ungodly whimper of need that she swallowed up, lips crushed to his, all hot breath and a deep growl of need in her throat that went directly to his loins, and - 

The door. 

“Captain, the other - oh.” 

They looked back like guilty teenagers to see Ensign Kharra standing there with Raph, wide-eyed expressions of shock on both their faces. 

“Forgive the intrusion.” 

Face mottled purple, Kharra hastily about-faced and strode off down the hallway. 

“Ensign! Kharra!  _ Chittra!”  _ Jhanna cursed, leaping nimbly to her feet. 

“Sorry,” she offered to Don quickly. “I have to - sorry.”

She darted straight past Raph’s glower, ignoring him entirely, and hurried down the hall after the Ensign.

Raph turned his smoldering scowl onto Donnie. 

“You’re  _ unbelievable.”  _

“Raph - 

“To think, I was coming here to apologize to  _ you.”  _

Don felt indignation rise up anew. “Well, maybe you  _ should.” _

“Oh, should I?” Raph snapped, spreading his arms wide and laying the sarcasm on heavy. “Should I, Donnie?! Because the resident genius is  _ clearly _ making some good, level-headed decisions here? And is  _ definitely _ not being snowed by a  _ complete _ stranger who -     
  
“That’s  _ not  _ what - 

“You’re treating this like some kind of  _ game?!  _ Leo and Mikey are still out there!” 

“I  _ know _ they’re - 

“We are  _ fugitives _ Donnie! Do you  _ get  _ that?!” Raph emphasized each point by jabbing a finger in the air. “Your  _ girlfriend _ could sell us to the highest bidder on a whim, and you’re up here playing ‘Professor and Mary Anne’ like it’s the freakin’ Love Boat?!”

“Mary Anne was Gilligan’s Island, you  _ idiot.”  _

Don regretted it as soon as the words left his lips - he knew how sensitive Raph was about his smarts...knew that’s why he teased Mikey so much about being dumb...the last thing he wanted to be was flippant or hurtful, not when he’d only just found him again. Not when so much of Raph’s temper was clearly just misplaced stress, the anxiety of being alone and lost finally catching up to him, worry about Leo and Mikey, worry about being so far from home...maybe even worry about him.

Raph just shook his head, looking at Don like he’d never really seen him before. 

“You know what?” Raph said darkly. “I’m done protecting you from yourself. Figure it out the hard way.” 

“Raph - look, it’s just!...” 

But Don couldn’t even lie and say it was just a passing fancy, just a fling. He was already pathetically head over heels for her and he knew it, and Raph knew it, and...well, now the whole ship knew it. He really was the most desperate, predictable -   
  
“It just...happened,” Don ended lamely.

Raph just shook his head and walked away, but just before the door hissed shut behind him, Don heard him mutter to himself:

“...April all over again.” 

Don stared at the closed door for a moment, then turned back to space, hugging his knees. His heart was still hammering in his chest, and he counted his breaths, trying to wait to feel normal again, but it was taking a lot longer than usual.    
  


“You must be patient with your brother, Donatello,” his father’s voice sounded in his memory. 

“Why?” he’d retorted, wiping sweat and grease from his forehead as he rolled out from under the Battle Shell and tossing his wrench into his toolbox a bit more forcefully than was strictly necessary. “He’s  _ never _ patient. All he does lately is bitch and moan at me, I’m sick of it.” 

“He is afraid,” his father had replied.   
  
“Of what?!” 

“Of pain. Of loneliness. Of seeing you hurt.”    
  
Don sighed heavily and closed his eyes, shaking his head to dismiss the memory. He tried, for one brief moment, to clear his mind, when the door hissed open again behind him. There was the hasty thumping of small feet and then Klaxor’s weight flung squarely on his shoulders.   
  
“Hey.”

“HOLY. FECES.” 

“You mean ‘holy shit,’” Don groaned. “I know. It’s bad.”

“Bad?! It’s AMAZING!” 

“Raph is all - 

“Frell Raph, the big manbaby, he’ll get over it. Tell me everything. Who kissed first? You or her? Did you get tongue? Boob?”

Don felt himself grinning despite his best efforts. 

“Tongue. No boob,” he mumbled shyly.

“AAAAAAAH!” 

Don winced as Klaxor squealed and pummeled his shell with her little balled up fists. 

 

[](http://imageshack.com/a/img924/7654/LnrbT8.png)


	6. Chapter 6

A day came and went where everyone very politely ignored each other. Don mostly read in his bunk. The only person who was defiantly, radiantly cheerful was Klaxor, who couldn’t keep the shit-eating grin off her face every time Don made eye contact, which eventually sent Raph huffing off to the dojo in a snit.

There was no word from the Omatrans.

The following day, however, the door to their cell-slash-quarters chimed and slid open to reveal both Captain Jhanna and Ensign Kharra.

  
“Good morning,” Jhanna said crisply, before any of them could greet her. “I thought you’d want to know, we’re approaching the city. We’ll be landing a few miles outside and taking the speeder again, to avoid drawing unwanted attention.”

“That’s okay,” Raph said coolly. “You can just drop us anywhere. Thanks.”

Don gave him a look, but Raph was deliberately ignoring him so he tried to catch Jhanna’s eye instead, but apparently neither of them were to be distracted from their stare-down.

“We, of course, will be happy to help search for your brothers,” Jhanna said.

“Nah, we got it,” Raph insisted, folding his arms.

“Raph,” Don tried quietly, but Raph just gave a stiff smile and nod to Jhanna.

“Thanks, though. For everything. We’ll be fine.”

“Fine on your own, on an alien planet, where you do not know the customs, the language, have no mode of transport, and a bounty on your heads?” Jhanna replied serenely.

Raph shifted his weight, not having a ready retort.

“I promised Donatello I would help him search for his brothers up until our Election Day on Omatra,” Jhanna continued. “Of course, if you would rather we -

“Thanks!” Klaxor jumped in hastily, earning some side-eye from Raph she ignored entirely. “Thank you, that’d be great!”

“It’s settled then,” Jhanna said, in a voice that brooked no further discussion. “We touch down in an hour. I suggest you hydrate, the planet is hot and dry. Donatello? A word in private?”

Don looked up, all his senses immediately jangling on high alert. “Uh. Sure, yes. Captain.”

He stood uncertainly and followed Jhanna out into the hall, but the door didn’t swoop shut behind them - apparently they were standing too close. And Ensign Kharra simply took a respectful step back and examined the corridor wall with great interest.

Apparently this private word was going to be more of a public word.

“I wanted to apologize for my behavior the other night,” Jhanna said.

“Oh.” Don’s face turned hot and there was a funny ringing in his ears, and he was more cognizant than ever of everyone in the immediate vicinity listening for every subtle nuance of his reply. “Please...don’t apologize.”

“It was unprofessional,” Jhanna said, her voice firm and deep. “I was...compromised.”

Don didn’t know how to reply. He wanted to tell her that it was okay, that her grief and her love for Jodhi was a strength, not a weakness, that he was glad he could be there for her...he wanted to tell her that she had nothing to apologize for, that he’d wanted that kiss every bit as much, and moreover that kissing her was the best thing that had happened to him in a long time...that he felt her pulling away and didn’t understand why or how to fix it. Of course he could see the logic in it, knew that it was probably for the best anyway, but still, there had to be some way that it could work out - right?

All these thoughts bottlenecked at once, and none were able to make it into words.

“I hope you don’t feel that I took advantage of your situation here,” she added.

Don closed his mouth abruptly, and allowed himself to admire her strong, beautiful features sadly. Maybe it really was more one-sided than he thought. Maybe she genuinely regretted it. She probably was just feeling lonely or sad and wanted a friendly face, someone who would listen, someone patient and kind who would understand...

“April all over again…”

“Of course not,” he said, trying to put as much warmth into the words as he could, trying to fit so much more into the three little syllables than he could properly articulate.

“Rest assured,” Jhanna said, holding eye contact with him relentlessly. “My entire focus is on helping you to find your family. Again, please accept my apology. It won’t happen again.”

Jhanna gave the politest, dullest smile he had ever seen, looking straight through his eyes into some middle distance, and gave his shoulder a friendly pat.

But I want it to happen again.

“As you wish, Captain,” he mumbled, immediately feeling corny and wishing he’d phrased it more casually.

There was an almost imperceptible flinch in Jhanna’s expression. Or maybe he just imagined it. A moment later, she was smiling placidly.

“Excellent. Prepare for landing. Ensign?”

Jhanna turned and began walking down the hall, her gait regal and elegant as ever. Kharra gave Don a look that may have been pity or guilt, and followed after.

Don numbly walked back into their quarters, robotically grabbed a foil pouch of water from the cabinet, and tore the corner.

“You guys better hydrate,” he said, his tongue feeling thick in his mouth. He lifted the pouch to his lips and greedily slurped down the entire thing, grateful for the convenient reason not to say anything else.

“Yeah, we heard.”

To his credit, Raph didn’t say “I told you so.” Don didn’t look Klaxor’s way...seeing her reaction to that whole awful conversation would only make it worse.

A few hours later found them climbing out of the speeder - Captain Jhanna, Ensign Kharra, Klaxor, Don, and Raph; also, two Cadets, one of whom was Cereth, who greeted Don with a friendly, conspiratorial smile.

“It should be just over that ridge,” Jhanna announced to her wrist. “We’re moving in on foot. Jhanna out.”

Without further preamble, she set off, everyone falling automatically into step behind her.

Don dragged a forearm across his forehead - they weren’t kidding about the climate. A few days in the cool, sterile, climate-controlled spaceship had spoiled him. By the time they crested the ridge he was already sweaty and dusty.

“‘City’ seems a little generous,” Ensign Kharra sniffed with disapproval.

Indeed, there were only about six buildings there, three and three, made of wood beams and pink clay, that faced each other across a lone street. There was no life that they could see, but faint, unidentifiable music drifted to them on the breeze.

“Civilian dress,” Jhanna announced.

Don wasn’t sure what she meant, but all the Omatrans immediately reached up and tapped an insignia on their chest. Their sleek uniforms seemed to shimmer for a moment, and then were immediately replaced by nondescript, loose-fitting garments in varying shades of brown and white. A hologram? Don caught himself staring at the way the fabric cinched at Jhanna’s waist, and forced himself to observe the rest of their new outfits.

“Holograms,” Jhanna confirmed, with a small smile. “After our last First Contact, we don’t know how the locals will react. Best not to give the appearance of an invading force.”

“Smart,” Don admitted.

It was another long slog down the sandy hillside, but at least down was easier than up. They had finally reached the main thoroughfare in the one-horse town when a couple of Triceratons staggered out of a nearby building. One was burly and bright orange, hastily wiping his fearsome jaws on his sleeve. The other was smaller and more brownish, trying repeatedly and failing to tuck a bottle into his pocket. They weren’t wearing the official military uniforms of the Triceraton empire, but that didn’t stop Don’s insides from churning at the sight of them. They stopped when they saw the party, and they all froze, staring at each other in the hot noon sun, waiting for the inevitable confrontation. Don felt his hands itching for his bo, but held his ground, waiting for them to make the first move of aggression.

“NEW GIRLS!” the smaller one roared. The other raised his fists and hooted in celebration, as they staggered their way over.

Scowling, Raph pushed his way to the front and folded his arms menacingly, and Don instinctively countered to suit. Kharra tsk’d in annoyance, but Don had to agree with Raph - drunk guys in back alleys were the same all around the universe, and they weren’t taking any chances...besides, just because the Omatrans could easily defend themselves didn’t mean they should have to. It was odd though, that the Triceratons had focused on the women and completely ignored the wanted fugitives - by any stroke of luck, this tiny planet was too far flung and they hadn’t gotten word yet from the Empire that -

All Don’s thinking abruptly ceased as the smaller of the two Triceratons strode confidently up to him and stroked a beefy finger down his bicep.

“Hey pretty lady,” he leered. “You wanna show me your moves?”

“Um. No, thank you?”

  
“Touch me and die,” Raph snapped to his left. Don looked over to see Raph already had his sai out, his cheeks flaming crimson even through the green of his skin. The other Triceraton held his hands up and hooted with his friend.

“Your sis - ter’s gotta temper,” the Triceraton near Don observed, pausing to burp quietly mid-sentence.

“She certainly does,” Don agreed immediately, earning a seething glare from Raph.

“You pretty ladies as talented as your sister?” the big orange one leered.

“Our sister?” Don snapped, heart leaping in his chest. “Wait, have you seen another one like us? A turtle?”

Suddenly, the faint music abruptly stopped, and was replaced by a much louder electric bassline. It sounded oddly familiar.

“Wait…” Raph scowled.

“SHE’S STARTING!” the big orange one shouted, smacking his smaller buddy on the arm with a hand the size of a frying pan. “Forget these two, we’re gonna miss it!”

“Bye, beautiful!”

Laughing, hooting, and stumbling, the Triceratons booked it for the last building on the left with way more speed than creatures of their size ought to be able to manage.

“You don’t think…” Raph cringed Don’s way.

“Of course I do,” Don grinned, already setting off at a trot. “Come on.”

“We’re following the Triceratons?” Klaxor grumbled behind him.

The landing party followed the path of the two drunkards to the last building on the left, pushing in past swinging wooden doors that opened up into a raucous bar. The dimly lit room was a shadowy respite from the heat and they paused to allow their eyes to adjust. They could already see it was full of aliens of various shapes, sizes and colors. They were all on their feet, crowding forward into the room, jostling for a better view and occasionally holding their bottles and giant mugs aloft to shout and whoop and spill foam on one another.

“I was beat, incomplete. I’d been had! I was sad and bluuuue…”

“Nooo,” Raph moaned softly. “Come on, man. Not Madonna.”

“What?” Kharra insisted, eyeing the room nervously, her hand hovering over her hip. “What is it?”

“BUT YOU MADE ME FEEEEEL!”

The Omatrans startled and assumed a defensive position as all the burly voices in the saloon began joining in. Don hopped in place a few times, trying to see over the crowd, his heart beating faster and faster.

“YEAH YOU MAAAAADE ME FEEL - SHINY AND NEEEEEEW!”

Don grabbed a nearby empty chair, and leapt nimbly onto it, so he could finally see over everyone’s head.

Sure enough, Mikey stood on a bunch of crates hastily pushed together into a makeshift stage, swathed in a lurid pink, toga-like outfit, sort of a dress with a hood attached. He had fashioned a cone bra out of what appeared to be cardboard and string, tied to his chest. Occasionally coins, Triceraton credits, and other dubious and unidentifiable objects landed at his feet.

“Come on now, lemme hear you!” he hollered into a cooking spoon he was holding like a microphone. He leapt up to punch the air in time, one of his cones flopping over. “One! Two! Three!”

“LIKE A VIRGIN!” the entire bar bellowed. Some dust fell from the rafters. “TOUCHED FOR THE VERY FIRST TIIIIIIME!!” Someone whooped and threw a bottle at the wall where it exploded, and two more followed in rapid succession.

“Kill me,” Raph begged. He had purloined his own chair, standing on it askance like Michelangelo’s very-embarrassed-David, face in palm.

“I did not know you had a sister?” Jhanna shouted over the din, dragging her own chair next to theirs.

“Neither did we,” Raph groaned.

“I might’ve had a hunch,” Don shouted back, completely unable to keep the smile off his face as he watched Mikey hop around lip syncing into a spoon, working the crowd.

“Hello?!” Klaxor snapped, and Don felt a mild stinging in his calf as Klaxor smacked it. “Vertically challenged, here?”

Don reached down and lifted her easily with one arm, so she could clamber onto his shoulder.

“Oo, he’s good!” she cried joyfully. “Mikey! Heyyyy Mikey!”

“You’re so fine! And you’re mine! Make me strong, yeah you...you…” Mike abruptly stopped dancing his blue eyes going round. He shaded his eyes, squinting their way.

“Wooo!” Don called, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Shake it, baby!”

“Don’t encourage this,” Raph groused.

“Oh, take the stick out, Raph.”

“S’cuse me, but does that look like ‘blending in’ to you?!” Raph gestured to the stage with one hand. “We’re s’posed to be deadly ninja assassins, we’re s’posed to be intimidating, we got a rep to maintain!”

Like he was in a trance, Mikey slowly held a palm up to the side. “Wait. Stop the music. STOP, CUT THE MUSIC! SERIOUSLY!”

The music abruptly stopped and the bar groaned in disappointment.

Klaxor waved her arms frantically over Don’s head. “HEEEY GILLIGAN!”

“Klaxor? Donnie?!” Mike cried. “Raph! THAT’S MY FAMILY!” He started jumping up and down in place, pointing to the back of the crowd. “HEY, THAT’S MY FAMILY!”

The bar roared their approval, and turning on the spot, Mikey leapt shell-first into waiting hands, body surfing his way back to them. “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge started playing suddenly. Don wondered bemusedly who was DJing, and how.

“Okaaaay folks, Miss Mikey’s taking a short break but we’ve got more of your favorite Earth tunes and lots more of your favorite Earth girl coming right up!”

“GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN!” shouted the big orange Triceraton from earlier.

“SAFETY DANCE!” cried a tall, male Omatran. “DO SAFETY DANCE!”

Jhanna tapped Kharra on the shoulder and pointed to the Omatran who had just shouted his request. She nodded back, lifted her wrist communicator and pressed a button. There was a slight shimmer, and a small display of the man’s blue face appeared in mid air, while a red circle slowly rotated next to it, obviously scanning him.

“DONNIE!”

Don was snapped back to the present, weight lifting from his shoulders both literally and figuratively as Klaxor leapt to the floor with a thump. He stepped down off the chair just as Mikey was dotingly lowered to the ground, and wrapped him in a crushing bear hug.

For a moment they just squeezed each other tight. Just as Don was relaxing his grip, Mikey pulled him back in fiercely.

“I knew you’d come,” Mikey whispered. “I knew it.”

The strength of Mike’s grip and the fervent, breathless relief in his voice suggested to Don that he perhaps had experienced doubts to the contrary. But Don just squeezed his little brother back.

“Of course we did.”

  
Mikey finally let go and turned to hug Raph, who accepted it with a strange mixture of relief and awkwardness on his face.

“Man, am I glad to see you guys.”

“Mikey...what?...” Raph gestured vaguely to his outfit.

“A dress.”

“How?!...” he gestured to the stage.

“Talent,” Mike replied with a cheeky grin.

“Why?” Raph sputtered helplessly.

“Turtle’s gotta eat,” Mikey shrugged. “Oh my God, Klaxor!!”

He swept her up off the floor, gave her a spin, and showered her face with kisses while she giggled.

“You look good in a dress, Mikey.”

“Heck yeah, I do. Man, it’s good to see you,” he repeated, settling Klaxor onto his hip like a toddler. “Hey Donnie, did you know we look like girls to Triceratons?”

“Jhanna,” Don said proudly, his eyes dancing, “this is Mikey.”

“Nanoo nanoo, dudette,” Mikey said, setting Klaxor down to shake Jhanna’s hand. “We come in peace, and all that. Hey, where’s Leo?”

Don’s smile fell a bit.

“Oh, no way,” Mike breathed, looking from Don to Raph to the other Omatrans. “He’s not with you? When I saw you, I thought for sure…”

“Mikey!”

They all turned to look as a purple alien with a head fin and four boobs stomped up angrily. Kharra stepped forward to block her path, but she just pushed Kharra’s hand out of the way in irritation.

“Mikey, you gotta finish your set, pupa. They’re gonna tear up the place.”

“Oh, hey Leesub!” Mike said, with a friendly wave. “This is my family! Family, blue people, this is my boss, Leesub, she runs this place. Anyway, my folks’re here to pick me up, so like...I quit, I guess. Lol.”

“What?!” Leesub cried in anguish. “What is ‘lol?’ Mikey, what am I supposed to with these -

“You can keep the iPod, it’s cool!” Mike said. “Actually, can I trade you?” He pinched the pink fabric in his fingers. “I kinda wanna keep this.”

“Mikey,” Don said. “We can’t leave yet. We’ve got to keep looking for Leo. Both you and Raph landed here, so he’s got to be on-world somewhere.”

“Oh, word? Okay, good thinking,” Mike nodded. “Hey, Leesub? Can I un-quit for a few days?”

“MIKEY! MIKEY! MIKEY!”

“Yes! Fine! Just go and finish your damn set!” Leesub shouted over the din, pointing back at the stage. She looked back over her shoulder and made a twirling gesture in the air with her finger. The intro to “Party Rock” started blaring, and the assembled crowd roared their approval.

“Sorry guys,” Mike said with a roguish wink. “My public awaits.”

He did a dramatic twirl, threw off the hood of his dress, and held his arms out. Crooking a knee elegantly, he was hoisted skyward by the nearest aliens and passed up towards the stage.

“So...what are we supposed to do?” Raph groused.

“Sing back-up?” Klaxor suggested.

“Hell no!”

“I guess we just enjoy the show for now,” Don beamed, climbing back up on his chair.

“You did not say your brother was a shurjyaianin!” Jhanna said, climbing up next to him.

  
“A what?”

“He is...hm. Cheerful? Fancy?”

“Gay?” Raph guessed.

“Hmm...perhaps?” Jhanna frowned. “It’s not translating properly.”

“Hah! That figures,” Don laughed, watching Mikey teach a room full of burly aliens how to shuffle.

“Mikey always defies a simple explanation,” Raph added ruefully.

“But I guess he’s pretty cheerful,” Don admitted, his heart glowing warm with affection.

“And fancy,” Klaxor pointed out helpfully, scaling Raph like a jungle gym.

“So then...Mikey is...a boy?” Jhanna asked dubiously. “Or a girl?”

“Sure,” Don replied, still grinning.

“Sometimes,” Raph muttered, with a rueful grin.

“Probably,” Klaxor added, from her new perch on Raph’s shoulders.

“Earthers,” Kharra mumbled. “Captain - I have the results of the scan on that Omatran. Name is Niddro but he has several aliases. Working caste, reported missing three years ago. Your typical lowlife. Illegal substance, possession and distribution, theft, failure to register, caste infiltration, assault, indecency.”

“Oo,” Klaxor chimed in. “What kind of indecency? The fun kind?”

“The indecent kind,” Kharra replied flatly, giving her a warning look.

“Charming,” Jhanna replied, keen blue eyes picking him out of the crowd again.

“Shall I detain him?”

“Negative,” Jhanna said. “We don’t want to cause a scene until we know more about this place. Keep an eye on him. We’ll question him when Mikey’s finished dancing.”

Mikey cycled through Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Come On Eileen, Bye Bye Bye, and ABC by the Jackson Five before a rousing finale of That’s What Friends Are For, during which all the various and sundry aliens put their massive arms and tentacles over one another’s shoulders and swayed back and forth soulfully.

“Thank you!” Mike cried, blowing air kisses to thunderous applause. “I love you! May the Force Be With You!”

“Okay, fellas!” Leesub said, stepping up onto the crates. “Miss Mikey will be back again at eleven Empire Time, nine o’clock local, so set your chronometers and don’t be late to the party!”

Bewilderingly, Heigh Ho from Snow White started to play. The aliens quickly downed the last of their beers, and there was the sound of heavy mugs hitting tables all around. Laughing, jostling one another, they filed out of the saloon into the hot sun until only some stragglers were left - including Niddro, their Omatran target.

“Miss Mikey,” he was pleading. “You got a boyfriend?”

“Oh, hundreds,” Mikey replied, with a wave of his hand. A couple other alien girls in varying colors and appendages were scooping money off the floor and counting it along with Leesub. “You’re all my boyfriends, you know that.”

“I mean someone special,” Niddro said earnestly, taking his green hand in his own blue ones. “Someone - ”

“Someone ‘indecent?’” Kharra said, loudly. “Like a petty thief, perhaps?”

He flinched, and glared their way resentfully, eyes raking them up and down.

“You’re out of uniform…” he muttered.

“Good eye,” Kharra scowled. “What gave it away?”

“The way you stand,” he said, a look of disgust on his face. “I know military caste when I see it. Who are you? Morriah send you?”

Kharra glanced at Jhanna, trying not to betray her surprise, but Jhanna was already stepping forward confidently.

  
“Yes,” she insisted. “She’s expecting a complete report.”

Don observed Jhanna’s face for any sign, any tell - she looked as cool and impassive as ever.

A good liar, then.

He wasn’t sure whether to find that worrisome.

“Alright, alright, relax,” the Omatran said, eyeing Kharra resentfully. “What does she wanna know? Like...output? Because that’s above my pay grade.” He snorted. “I guess you could say I’m in ‘asset retention.’ Besides, if she wants faster results then she’s gonna have to find us new bodies, we got basically the whole planet down the hole already.”

Don felt a prickling at the back of his neck and glanced to his left, startled to see Raph eyeing him with a wild expression in his eyes.

“What?” he mouthed.

Raph just shook his head curtly.

Suddenly, Spentarr’s words came back to Don: “Blue ones put you in the dirt. Never see you again.”

“He means the mine,” Mikey added helpfully. “All these guys are miners. I keep asking them to show me, but they always say no.”

“No, Miss Mikey,” Niddro insisted, proving the point. He took one of Mikey’s green hands in his again. “Mine’s not a place for a pretty thing like you.”

Raph snorted. “Guess you didn’t mention where we grew up, then.”

“Don’t be jealous cuz I’m pretty,” Mikey sniffed disdainfully.

Raph scowled and opened his mouth to retort, but suddenly thought better of it, and smiled instead. Shaking his head, he wrapped an arm around Mikey’s neck and gave him an affectionate noogie.

“Ow! Hey!”

“I’m glad you’re okay, little bro.”

“Yeah. You too, Raphie.”

“Little bro?” Niddro mumbled, blue brow furrowing in confusion.

“The mine,” Jhanna interrupted. “Take us there.”

Distracted, he took in Jhanna’s appearance, eyes raking her head to toe.

“You look awful familiar,” he drawled.

“Sorry, not interested,” Jhanna snapped. “The mine. Now.”

“Anybody ever tell you you look like that Fleet Captain, you know the one...Jenna? Jonah?” He snapped and pointed at her. “Jhanna. That’s it. The one that they -

“I get that a lot,” Jhanna said, her face growing stormier by the minute. “Take us to the mine. Now.”

Niddro’s eyes slowly widened.

“Oh shit,” he blanched.

“We’ve been made,” Kharra announced, drawing her blaster.

Niddro threw his mug of beer at Kharra’s eyes and made a break for it. Cursing, Kharra drew her blaster and leveled it.

“Ah, nuts,” Mikey sighed.

With a flick of his foot, he flipped the table over with a bang, causing Kharra to jump back in alarm. Reaching into his robes, he produced one of his ‘chucks, gave it a quick whirl, and tossed it after Niddro. The chain tangled around his ankles, and there was a cringeworthy thud as the handles connected with his shin. He gave out a pained yelp and landed faced down in Mikey’s tips, sending coins scattering and the other girls who worked the saloon squealing and scampering for cover.

“Hey, no fighting in here,” Leesub called out warningly.

“Sorry, Leesub,” Mikey sighed. “They’re with me.”

“I don’t care,” Leesub stated firmly. She pointed at Niddro, face-down on the floor. “I know him. He pays cash. Them I don’t know.”

“We’re goin’,” Mikey promised, standing up to retrieve a groaning Niddro. Grabbing him by the scruff of his shirt, he started dragging him towards the door.

“Nice while it lasted,” he grumbled as he passed their table. “Pro tip,” he added, jutting his chin at Kharra’s blaster. “If your only tool is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail.”

“I - what?” Kharra stammered.

“Just something Dad said,” he grumbled, dragging Niddro outside.

“I like Mikey,” Jhanna added, rising to follow him out the door.

“Yeah, he’s a pistol,” Don agreed, following into the bright and the heat.

“Look, you’re already boned, dude,” Mike was saying, as he helpfully untangled Niddro’s legs from his nunchaku. “It’s too late now. Might as well come clean.”

“You don’t understand,” he said, brushing dust from his clothing with an air of deeply offended dignity. “Morriah wouldn’t want you sniffing around here. You don’t want to cross her. Not in an election year,” he added meaningfully.

“Try me,” Jhanna announced, entering the conversation. “What’s so secretive about a mining operation?”

Niddro avoided her gaze, and stared at the dirt like a sullen teenager.

“Fine,” Jhanna announced, scanning the horizon. “That them?”

Don followed her point and saw a haze of dust lingering, kicked up by the vehicles slowly shrinking towards the horizon.

“Guess we’ll go see for ourselves.”

She started stalking off down the one street in town.

“Wait,” Niddro finally said. “I’ll take you. But...yeah, I’ll take you. Just don’t tell her I was the one that showed you. And I want immunity.”

“We’re not here to deal with you,” Kharra said bluntly. “Cadets - if he tries anything funny - shoot him.”

“HAMMer,” Mikey coughed into his hand.

Kharra rolled her eyes.

“Shoot him in the knee first.”

“Miss Mikey,” Niddro whined. “How you gonna let them treat me like this? I thought we had something special?”

“Sorry, cupcake,” Mike replied, striking a devil-may-care pose. “But I gave my heart to pizza long ago.”

“Who is this Pizza?” Niddro scowled. “I will kill him.”

“This must be what going crazy feels like,” Raph mumbled to no one.

“You have transport?” Jhanna demanded.

A few moments later, they were all lined up behind the building to stare at a gray-and-tan, hairless lump of beast, the size of a Volkswagen minivan, with a short, wrinkled trunk and powerful body odor. To Don, it sort of looked like an elephant and a manatee had a really ugly baby and rolled it in some mud. It had a blanket on its back, and a halter connected its head to a hitching post. It looked up from the pile of hay it was chomping with brown, watery eyes, held their gaze indifferently as it chewed, and let out a loud, sustained fart before slowly returning to its troth.

“I been saving up for a speeder,” Niddro mumbled in the ensuing silence, his cheeks turning a bit purple.

“Can’t imagine why,” Klaxor added, waving a hand in front of her nose.

So it was that Don found himself straddled uncomfortably wide over the lumbering, swaying back of a whatever-it-was in the sweltering heat, in a kind of bizarre conga line, Raph and Klaxor behind him, Mikey directly before, singing the theme song from Bonanza under his breath, and the Omatrans in front of him.

  
“Why am I at the back end?” Klaxor grumbled.

“Because your legs won’t go around the middle,” Raph groused.

“Don’t worry, it smells just as bad at the front,” Cereth supplied helpfully.

“You could always be walking,” Niddro scolded, nudging the beast’s armpits with his heels.

“Walking might be faster,” Kharra grumbled, her arms around Jhanna’s waist. Don tried not to be too jealous.

“Bum badabum badabum badabum BONAAAANZAAAAAAA!”

“Mikey! Change the damn record, would ya?”

“Yippie tiiiiiii yi yo, git along, little blob thing, it’s your misfortune and none of my own!”

Mikey also tapped his heels on the blob thing’s sides cheerfully. In reply, it stopped walking momentarily to let out another long, raucous fart before resuming its plodding shuffle through the sand.

“This seemed like a better idea an hour ago,” Klaxor said, her voice muffled as she pulled her shirt up over her nose.

“Be honest, this never seemed like a good idea,” Raph corrected her.

Don kept silent, tried not to slide off the side, and contented himself with watching Jhanna’s braids sway back and forth wistfully.

After another half hour or so, Niddro leaned to the side to reach into his pocket.

“Hey,” Kharra warned, hand floating to her hip.

“Relax,” Niddro grumbled. He reached behind his back and passed what looked like a visor to Jhanna, with a slit cut in the middle. “Here. So they don’t recognize you.”

Jhanna gave it a dubious sniff, and then complied, placing it over her eyes and tying the strings behind her head. Kharra reached up and fussed with it some more, detangling it from her braids and securing a better knot. Don sighed softly.

Apparently it was loud enough for Mikey to hear, because he twisted in his seat, craning backwards to give a sly look and waggle his brows at Don.

“She’s pretty,” he stage-whispered.

“Shh! Mikey!”

“What? She’s totally your type.”

“I have a type now?”

“Been there, done that,” Raph informed Mikey in a mumble that was a bit too audible for Don’s taste. “Already got the ‘let’s be friends’ speech.”

“Am I really that predicta-

“Yes,” Mikey and Raph interrupted him in unison.

“We’re almost there,” Niddro announced.

They all fell silent. A large watchtower appeared at the crest of a hill, growing slowly larger as they drew close. Finally, when they had almost reached it, a Triceraton carefully poked his horned, orange head and his laser rifle out of the crow’s nest and called down to them.

“Took you long enough, Niddro. What’s all this?”

“Morriah sent them,” Nidro called back. “They’re here to take a look at the place.”

The Triceraton seemed uncomfortable with this.

“Not like we can go any faster,” he called down. “Does Zarok know about this?”

“Look man,” Niddro said, spreading his arms in irritation. “I just do what I’m told.”

“Alright, alright,” the Triceraton grumbled, disappearing back into the tower. “Sheesh, stow the artillery.”

They leapt from the back of the blob thing. Niddro didn’t bother tying it to anything, just flung the lead over the tower supports. It shuffled forward to dunk its head in a bucket of water with noisy slurping noises.

They followed Niddro up to the crest of the ridge, and when they looked down…

It took a moment to take it all in. The entire area was sunk into the ground in deep layers, like a staircase for giants down to the center of the earth. On each level, multiple dark holes bored into the rock face like Swiss cheese. On the bottom layer, large carts rattled along on tracks, huge rocks were being broken down by workers with hammers...there was the constant sound of rock and metal banging and grating and squealing against one another. Most were the rosy bug-like creatures, like Spentarr, but there were also some scattered Omatrans, Triceratons, and other unidentifiable aliens mixed in. In one area, paydirt was being shuffled down a long sluice and panned, recycled water flowed endlessly down only to be pumped through a filter and sent back to the top again. In other areas, a line of people were doing nothing but passing rocks to one another, like a bucket brigade, creating a seemingly endless pile. Others emerged from the holes periodically, lugging boulders, or rolling them together until they could slide them tumbling down long, wooden slides, where they’d crack at the bottom, or crash into a waiting pile, to be further broken down. It looked like hot, sweaty, intense work. But to Don’s dismay, walking amongst the miners were some of the Triceratons, Omatrans, and other aliens he recognized from the bar, shouting orders, pointing, and…

...cracking whips. And brandishing clubs.

“They’re slaves,” Don blurted in horror.

“No,” Niddro said, shifting position awkwardly. “They all have contracts.”

“Look at them,” Raph pointed, furiously.

“They get paid,” Niddro insisted weakly. “Just…”

“Just what,” Kharra asked coldly.

Niddro sighed. “They have to pay for their own food, water, shelter...that kinda thing. And…”

“And you charge them more than you pay them,” Don supplied, anger constricting his throat so his words came out tight and frayed. “So they just keep racking up debt they can never hope to repay. Right?”

“Ya load sixteen tons, whaddaya get?” Raph quoted.

“Another day older and deeper in debt,” Don spat. “This...this is slavery.”

“I…I don’t...”

Don looked over and his heart broke a little to see the bewildered, wounded expression on Mikey’s face, his blue eyes wide and round with confusion.

“I...I don’t get it. I sang for you guys. We had fun. And the whole time...I danced around like an idiot while you threw coins at me, and...the whole time, you were…”

He interrupted himself and, seized by sudden fury, grabbed Niddro by the shirt and hauled him up onto his toes.

“Is my brother down there?” he asked, ice in his voice. “Was Leo down there somewhere in chains this whole time I was - just -

“Hey, hey, hey, calm down!” Niddro hissed, trying to wriggle free.

“Calm down?!”

“Everything okay down there?” the Triceraton called from the tower.

“It’s fine,” Niddro called, a tinge of fear in his voice. “Everything’s fine.”

“Hey, is that Miss Mikey? Holy Horns! Miss Mikey! Hi, it’s me, Raktor! Hi!”

Mikey roughly released Niddro’s shirt, and pointed a finger in his face.

“Never talk to me again.”

“Hey, Miss Mikey, come on,” Niddro pleaded. “I mean - they’re just a bunch of dune-bugs! It’s not like they’re actual people.”

Mikey took one step forward, his hand reaching for his chucks.

“Ooookay. Okay, okay,” Raph said, grabbing Mikey by the shoulders and pulling him back. “Take it easy. Soon, alright? Save some for later.”

Mikey couldn’t seem to speak, so he just pointed at Niddro again, furious blue eyes watering.

“I mean,” Niddro shrugged miserably. “A job’s a job.”

“A job where you press-gang living, sentient beings into slavery?” Jhanna hissed, furiously.

Niddro’s face clouded over, fear replaced by disgust.

“What do you know about it, Miss Ruling Caste?”

Kharra and the other Omatrans gaped, open-mouthed at the audacity. Jhanna’s shade of blue became a little paler, her lips tight and drawn.

“Oh yeah,” Niddro sneered in Don’s direction. “Guess she neglected to mention that, huh? She killed so many Stone Soldiers in the war, they made her Ruling Caste. Not like you ever have to worry about your next meal, is it? Well some of us down here on the ground don’t got that kinda upward mobility, Princess. At least I didn’t kill anybody to get where I got.”

There was a swift crack as Kharra backhanded him across the mouth, hard enough to set him hard on his rump.

“You dare?” she hissed, her eyes absolutely wild. “You mud-bellied working-class kistai, you dare address a Captain of the Omatran Fleet with such - ”

But she stemmed her fury as Jhanna held up a warning hand.

“Look lady,” Niddro spat, rubbing the corner of his mouth on the back of his hand. “I just work here. You don’t like it, take it up with Morriah.”

“Don’t worry,” Jhanna said, stepping over him and glaring down into the mine. “I intend to.”

Just then, there was a loud, concussive boom, and the ground seemed to shake underneath them. A plume of smoke rose from the pump, the sluice toppled sideways and smashed to pieces, the debris and piles of dirt landing in a chaotic heap over one of the railways. The next cart smashed into it and toppled sideways, spilling rocks everywhere.

“Shit!” Raktor cursed from up in the crow’s nest.

A ragged, ululating cry went up from the bug-creatures, who raised their tools and their chains and rattled them together.

“Shit,” Niddro echoed, a look of dread on his face. “It’s the Ghost.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I headcanon that 2k3 Mikey is a pansexual demiguy...though I don’t think he or his family have ever thought about it in those terms. To them, “that’s just Mikey.” I imagine he’s not fussy about pronouns either, content not to correct people whatever they assume. Also, alas, there is no gorgeous art to go along with this chapter! But that’s because TS is hard at work on beautiful cover art for this story! She let me glimpse a sketch - it’s so good you guys XD I’m still having so much fun, thanks for being patient everybody!  
> A/N UPDATE: YAAAY beautiful art of Mikey is here! And a cover! And a new chapter is almost done cooking! Thanks for your patience everybody :)


	7. Chapter 7

The cheers and cries of the mauve bug-people became mingled with cries of dismay as those bearing whips and cudgels began cruelly driving them back with fierce blows.    
  
_ “Hey!” _ Raph cried. 

“Not yet,” Jhanna said, reaching a hand out. “Not yet,  _ wait!”  _

But Raph, Don, and Mike had all moved as one unit, immediately leaping clear over the ledge, their legs scrambling to keep up with gravity as they raced down towards the fray. After a moment, Don simply jumped, leaned back, and landed on his shell, sliding down the steep slope and gritting his teeth against the uncomfortable vibrations. 

“Yeeeee-haw!” Mikey cried to his right, following suit and kicking up a spray of sand Don averted his head to avoid. He had to give a grudging smirk in agreement, tightening his grip on his bo - cracking these particular heads was gonna feel pretty damn good. 

The slope began to even out, and they leapt up onto their feet, and with five or six running steps, they were in the middle of it. One of the slave drivers was lifting a studded cudgel in his beefy orange arm, two of the mauve bug creatures already huddled on the ground before him, trying to shield one another’s heads. Don lashed out fiercely with his bo, relishing the shuddering jolt in his hands and wrists and the wet crunch as it connected with the Triceraton’s skull, dropping him instantly. Without breaking his stride, Don stepped up onto the fallen alien’s shoulder for leverage and leapt up, raising the bo high above his head and bringing it smashing down onto an Omatran’s wrist, shattering it instantly and in all likelihood permanently, the whip falling from his useless hand to the sound of a piercing scream.    
  
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Mikey spinning like a whirling dervish, his chucks two hazy halos blurring his fists as he took on two Triceratons and an Omatran at once. 

“Be gentle,” he teased. “This is my first inter-species fourway.”

He leapt to dodge as one of the Triceratons attacked, and neatly laid out the other two with one sweeping, impossibly fast kick. The remaining Triceraton immediately started backing up in alarm, dropping his cudgel and fumbling for his blaster. 

“What’sa matter, can’t get it up? Figures.”

Mikey ran off after him.

_ “Donnie!  _ Fastball special!” 

Distracted by Raph’s gruff voice at his 7 o’clock, Don spun his bo over his head, turned, and extended it for Raph to grab onto. Relying on his spinning momentum, and with a loud roar of effort, he swung his bo full-strength like a baseball bat, sending Raph flying directly into the breadbasket of a charging Triceraton, knocking the phaser out of his grip and sending him crashing backwards into the remains of the sluice. 

_ “Ahh!”  _

Donnie cried out as the searing pain of a laser blast hissed across his shoulder. Ducking to the ground on instinct, he laid himself flat behind the body of the Triceraton he’d just dropped. 

_ “Sniper!” _ he called out in warning. 

_ “Aah!”  _

He turned into alarm to see Mikey hit the dirt, a black mark on his shell still sizzling. 

_ “Mikey!”  _

_ “I’m okay!”  _ Mikey called back frantically, laser blasts hitting the sand behind his feet as he scrabbled on all fours behind an overturned rock cart. “Ow ow ow! I’m okay!”   
  
“Forgot about the damn tower,” Raph snarled, peeking out from behind the sluice. He ducked back quickly as a perfect flaming hole appeared in the wood near his head and a scorch mark in the dirt marked the laser’s trajectory. Don gave his shoulder a cursory glance and hissed through his teeth. It was pink, oozing fluid, and the skin around the wound was blackened. Not fatal, but...not good. 

“This wasn’t our best plan!” Mikey confessed, a wisp of smoke still curling from his shell.    
  
“You think?” Raph hollered. “‘Cause _ I’m _ havin’ fun.”    
  


“I didn’t say it was a  _ boring _ plan!” Mikey returned, wincing away from more laser blasts near his head. 

“Where the _ hell  _ is Smurfette with those Red Shirts?” Raph snapped at Don. 

Don carefully peered over the body of the Triceraton he was using for cover, desperately scanning for them. His heart leapt as he saw Jhanna free-climbing the guard tower, leaping and grabbing and pulling herself up the support beams. 

“Hang tight!” he called back. “Jhanna’s on it!” 

“Not really a long-term option,” Raph called back. He unleashed a couple of throwing stars from his belt, and there was an anguished cry from way too close for Don’s comfort. He hadn’t even seen them sneaking up.

“She’s almost there!” Don called, watching Jhanna’s progress with anxiety. She had almost reached the two-thirds mark up the tower, when - 

“RAKTOR!”    
  
Don’s head swiveled to his right, where another Triceraton was hollering and waving his arms up at the tower.    
  
“RAKTOR! LOOK DOWN YOU IDIOT! RAK - ”

He gave a surprised gurgle at the sai blossoming from his chest and fell like a ton of bricks. But as Don looked back over at the tower, the damage had been done. Raktor ran over to the other side, and unsheathed a blaster. 

“NO!” Don called. “JHANNA! LOOK OUT!” 

Raktor fired, and Don could hear Jhanna’s cry in the distance as it connected with her shoulder. She managed to hang on with one hand for a moment, then gave a yelp as she tumbled backwards, arms pinwheeling helplessly in midair. He could hear a thump and see the small cloud of dust raised on the ridge. 

“NO!” he cried, leaping to his feet despite all logic. A second later, he was face down in the dirt again, Raph’s entire weight on top of him. 

_ “Stop!” _

“Get - off - me!” 

_ “STAY DOWN!”  _ Raph roared in his ear. 

“Everyone stop!” 

They looked up to see a Triceraton each holding one of Mikey’s arms, Niddro panting heavily and holding a blaster to Mikey’s temple with one hand, while the other tried to stem the flow of deep violet blood over one eye. 

“Everyone just...fuckin...stop,” Niddro panted. 

“Sorry guys,” Mikey cringed. “Sorry. I didn’t see- 

“Hey.” 

Raph sighed heavily, and finally climbed off Donnie, raising his hands deliberately. 

“You did good.”   
  
Mikey looked down at his feet and shook his head miserably.

“It’s okay.” Don slowly climbed to his feet as well, lifting his hands. “It’s not your fault, Mikey.”

He tried to catch a glimpse up at the ridge, but there was no sign of Jhanna, Klaxor, or the other cadets. 

  
_ “Move it, _ lizard!” 

A few moments later, they were kneeling side by side in the scorching sun, their wrists shackled together with heavy chains, ranks of mauve bug-creatures kneeling behind them in neat lines. Ranks of slave drivers faced them, most holding whips and cudgels, but a few holding blaster rifles or phaser pistols. Niddro stood slightly behind a larger Triceraton, one of the ones who had been holding Mikey’s arm. He paced back and forth furiously.    
  
“The rest are sealed in the mines, Kronag,” Niddro muttered quietly. “We cut power to the lifts and the lights. We’ll get ‘em once we deal with these.”

“Alright,” Kronag said, still pacing. “Alright.”

He stepped forward and planted his feet, and scowled at all of them for a moment in silence. Deliberately, he raised a finger and pointed back at the ruined sluice. 

“This shit? Is unacceptable. It stops right here, right now.” 

They all glowered at the dirt in silence.

Kronag lifted his head a bit higher, hand straying to the blaster on his hip.   
  
“Who did it?”

Again, they all glared at the dirt silently. Don felt a bead of sweat slide down the dome of his scalp. He watched it plip into the dust, making a small dark dot where it landed.

“Tell me now, or this is going to get a lot uglier a  _ lot _ faster.”

Against his will, Don lifted his eyes again to the ridge, his heart sinking deeper every time he looked and saw nothing there.

He grunted as the butt of a whip connected with his jaw, knocking him into Raph’s side. 

“Hey!” Mikey hollered. “Leave ‘im alone!” 

“Am I  _ boring _ you?” the Triceraton asked, kneeling in front of Don. His breath was rank. “Or do I have your full attention?” 

Don glowered back, and spat a little blood in the dirt. 

The Triceraton nodded slowly, staring him in the face. “Okay. Okay. Fair enough.” 

Standing he reached past Don. There was a yelp as one of the bug creatures was yanked roughly past Don. A wail went up from several of the others behind them. He dragged her forward, then dropped her on the ground. Reaching into his holster, he took out his blaster and aimed it at her head. 

“NO!” one of the others cried, standing. “It was the Ghost! The Ghost did it!” 

“Torrek! Be quiet!” an older, darker purple bug hissed, trying to yank him back to the ground. The younger one fiercely shrugged his claw away, and took a step forward. 

“Please! It was the Ghost, I swear!” 

_ “There’s no such thing as ghosts!” _ Kronag roared, a fleck of spit leaving his orange jaw to hit Don’s cheek. Don made a face of disgust, and wiped it on his shoulder, chains at his wrists clinking musically.

“He’s real!” Torrek cried desperately. “He’s real, I’ve seen him. Please, just let her go and I promise, I’ll tell you everything I know.” 

“Tell me what you know,” Kronag countered, charging up the blaster with an electronic whine, “or I  _ promise, _ I’ll perforate her skull right now.” 

“Okay!” the bug-creature cried, dropping to his knees, holding his hands out in supplication. “Okay! The Ghost is - 

“Me.”    
  
Don turned to look as the older, purple bug creature shakily, painfully got to his feet. He straightened up to his full height, or as high as he was able to, with his spine bent and crooked from years of pain and work.    
  
“I am the Ghost,” he announced, simply. 

“No!” 

Don looked over his other shoulder where a malnourished, pale blue Omatran was struggling to stand under her own power.

“I am! I’m the Ghost.” 

“No!” Torrek cried desperately. “No, they’re lying! The Ghost is - 

“I am!” 

“No! I am!” 

One by one they rose to their feet, some on their own, others leaning on their neighbor for strength, the din getting louder and louder until finally, Kronag fired the blaster into the sky. They all fell silent as he pointed it back at the bug girl’s head and recharged it with an angry jerk. 

“You dune bugs had your chance.”

_ “He’s green!”  _ Torrek cried reaching out desperately.  _ “Green, _ the Ghost is green, like  _ them, _ he must have brought them here, I’m telling you, they’re with him! They’re with the Ghost, they have to be! Don’t hurt her!” 

Don’s head snapped up, and his heart began to race faster, his suspicions confirmed. Leo. Leo was here somewhere. Was he sealed in the caves? Had he remote-detonated the sluice? No...he was probably close, then. Hiding just out of sight...but then what the hell was he waiting for?

Kronag turned his eyes to them suspiciously. With a vicious kick, he shoved the bug girl away, and strode towards them purposefully. 

He stared into Don’s eyes and Don stared back defiantly. After a moment, he stepped to his left and stared at Raph.

“Whatchu lookin’ at, ugly?” Raph snapped. 

Kronag glanced at Don’s face, then walked over to Mikey. 

Mikey scowled back as well, but when Kronag looked back to check Don and Raph’s faces, he must have seen something in their expressions, because he just smirked cruelly and stepped back. 

“This one. Get him up.”

“Leave him al-  _ ungh!” _

Raph’s struggle to get to his feet was abruptly cut off as Raktor gave him a swift kick to the breadbasket. He winced and shook out his massive orange foot as Raph coughed. 

“Freaks’re like rocks,” Raktor muttered, limping away.   
  
“Well. We’re a mining outfit, aren’t we?” Kronag replied, spitting into the sand. “What do we do to rocks?”

“Break ‘em, boss,” Raktor growled. 

Kronag dragged Michelangelo forward, turned him to face them all, and pressed him back down to his knees. 

“Okay,  _ Ghost!” _ he called, making a big show of pointing his phaser at Mikey’s head. His voice bounced and echoed back off the carved rock walls of the mine. “We’re gonna have ourselves a séance. I’m giving you ten  _ grocking _ seconds to appear, or your little friend here is decorating the dirt. Ten. Nine. Eight.”

Mikey made eye contact with Don...his eyes were so blue, even bluer than Leo’s.    
  
“Sorry,” Mikey mouthed, with a little wince of apology. Don felt his heart pound harder in his chest.  

“What’s the play?” Raph hissed.

“Kick ass on three,” Don gritted through his teeth.  

“Try something, lizards,” Raktor warned, patting his blaster rifle. “I hear you muttering down there.”

“Seven. Six. F- _ AAAH!”  _

They looked up in alarm as a shuriken blossomed neatly through Kronag’s wrist. Don and Raph followed its likely path, and just caught a glimpse of brown fabric whipping behind the ruins of the sluice. 

“There!” Kronag pointed with his one good hand. “Fire, you trogs!” 

All the remaining guards turned as one and aimed at the sluice. 

With a roar, Don leapt up and brought his chains smashing down on Raktor’s head. As one, all the guards turned back towards them and away from the sluice. To Don’s horror, Kronag aimed his blaster at Mikey’s head in panic, but Raph was already diving through the air and tackling Mikey to the sand, covering him with his body. Don had one fleeting moment of panic that Raph would get shot instead, but instead of firing, Kronag let out a loud grunt and looked down in horror at the reddened steel blades jutting through his chest. 

_ “Gurrk!”  _

With a trembling hand, Kronag tried to raise the blaster again, a bubble of blood popping on his lip, but as he did, the blades in his chest twisted a neat ninety degrees, and disappeared with a slick, sucking sound. He fell bonelessly to the sand like a marionette whose strings were cut, revealing Leo standing behind him, green thighs spattered with dust and blood. He reached up and pulled back the hood of the sandy brown rags he was wearing. 

“Stay the hell away from my family,” he instructed the corpse. 

“Leo!” Mikey cried joyfully.

_ “Freeze!”  _

The remaining guards all trained their blasters on Leo, but their eyes were wide and wild, and they shifted position nervously as they took stock of how many guards were left. 

“No,” Leo replied, reaching down to his belt.  _ “You _ freeze.”    
  
He held up - well, it appeared to be a stopwatch, the same one he used for intervals during morning training. His thumb rested lightly over one of the buttons, the numbers running rapidly. 

“This is a dead man’s switch to a thermal detonator,” he announced, his voice flinty and cold. “If my thumb leaves this button, this entire  _ mine _ is a smoking crater.”    
  
There was a frisson of gasps from both slaves and guards alike. 

“He’s bluffing!” one of the Triceraton guards shouted, his voice a bit too loud and too shaky to be confident. “He’s not gonna blow up his  _ family! _ Or the other slaves!” 

“Test me and _ find out!”  _ Leo snapped. He jerked the stopwatch a little higher, and there was another gasp from all around them. 

“Isn’t that just a stopwatch?” Mike asked in confusion. 

Don and Raph slowly turned their heads to stare at Mikey. His blue eyes went wide with horror as he realized what he’d done.

  
“I mean,” he stammered, “no, it’s - totally a bomb, aaaah he’s - a madman, I tell you!”

Leo’s shoulders sagged as he sighed and shook his head lovingly at Mikey.

“Well. So much for that.” 

Kicking one leg up, Leo twisted in mid-air, sending a spray of sand into the nearest guard’s eyes. Spinning the stopwatch on its lanyard he released it like a sling, so it smacked off the forehead of another, distracting him long enough so he could roll away from a laser blast and send another shuriken into the forearm of a guard. 

_ “NOW!” _ Don bellowed, scrambling to his feet and addressing the ranks of slaves behind them.  _ “Now, now, now! _ Fight if you want to live!” 

_ “COWABUNGAAAAAAAA!”  _ Mikey cried, leaping up and swinging his chains over his head. 

There was a roar of battle and a deafening swell of bug-like clicking, like a sea of cicadas, as the slaves all leapt to their feet and began to charge. Immediately though, there were mingled cries of horror as laser blasts began exploding all around them. 

“The sniper tower!” Raph shouted. “They must still have someone up there!”   
  
“Raph! Mike!” Leo ordered, ushering some bug-creatures towards shelter. “Get to the tower and take down the shooter! Don, get the electricity back on in the mines, they’re still trapped down there!” 

“No!” Don cried instinctively. “We can’t split up, not again!” 

“Get moving!” Leo cried. “We have to - ”

But Leo’s words were swallowed by the rising roar of wind, sand, and the scream of engines as the Flagship Discovery came streaking over the desert landscape, and in one fell swoop, smashed the guard tower completely to splinters, as easily as a kid kicking a dandelion head. They watched a screaming Triceraton flail through empty air as he plummeted, landing with a crunch at the bottom of the mine. The massive ship pivoted on the spot, engines whining with the strain, silhouetted by the sunset, so massive it seemed to eat the whole sky. Don squinted as dazzling flood lights washed over all of them. 

“LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS IMMEDIATELY AND PLACE YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD,” Ensign Kharra’s placid voice reverberated through all their skulls, “THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING.” 

For a moment nobody moved. Finally, however, one of the Triceraton slave drivers tossed his laser rifle down, and got to his knees. Taking their cue from him, all the rest of them followed suit.    
  
Leo slowly pulled the rags off his head and shoulders, and sheathed his swords with a weary sigh. Drawing himself to full height, he turned towards the ranks of slaves. 

_ “Trrikkina rakbot - WE ARE FREE!”  _ he cried, raising one fist. 

The deafening roar of cicadas and ragged cheers went up again, as ranks of slaves raised their fists, chains rattling in defiance and joy. Don felt goosebumps rising on his arms.

Leo looked over and made eye contact. Before he could say or do anything however, Leo was football tackled into the sand by Mikey. Raph crouched down a moment later and began rubbing the dome of Leo’s head with his fist, grinning from ear to ear.    
  
“Okay, okay,” Leo said, pawing them aside and struggling to his feet. “Let me up.” He crushed them each under one arm, giving Mikey’s head a firm kiss for good measure. He made eye contact with Don again and strode towards him. 

“I…” Don swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry and a lump rising in his throat. “Leo...about the...escape pod, with the...I know I - I didn’t listen, and I should have followed orders, sorry about knocking you unconscious by the way but - I tried, well -  _ we  _ tried to find you sooner, if I knew - we didn’t know where you - if we’d ever - ”

Leo closed the distance between them, and put one heavy hand on Don’s shoulder, the other behind his neck. He stared intently for a moment, his steely, gray-blue eyes piercing right through Don - steely gray-blue eyes that suddenly began to swim with tears.    
  
Leo slowly, carefully pulled Don in a tight embrace.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

Don felt his own eyes stinging and tried not to sniffle into Leo’s neck as he squeezed back. After a moment Leo stood straight again, and gripped Don by the shoulders. 

“I thought you were dead,” Leo choked. “But not only did you survive, you found them, and you kept them safe and you brought them back to me. I am so -  _ proud _ of you, Don.” 

A weight Don didn’t even know he had been carrying lifted as he began to realize, fully that it was really going to be okay - that they were all together again, that the burden of Knowing What To Do could finally be set aside.    
  
“Hey, how do you know  _ we _ didn’t find  _ him?” _ Raph interjected with a grin. His arms were folded and he was leaning up against Mike, who had his arm slung around his big brother.   
  


“Did you?” Leo asked.

“Well...no.” 

Leo smiled, and ruffled a hand over Don’s scalp. 

“I knew because I always can count on Donnie.”    
  
Swallowing a sob, Don felt his face scrunch up and he could only nod as Leo laughed softly and pulled him into another hug. They were jostled as Raph and Mikey joined in, their heads bumping into one another. 

“Okay but Raph and I were also very heroic,” Mikey interjected, worming his way close to collect another hug from Leo.   
  
“You dressed in drag an’ sang showtunes!”

“Yeah, very  _ heroically.”  _

Don took a shaky breath and released it, closing his eyes. They were safe. They were together and they were all safe, and healthy, and they - 

His eyes snapped open. 

“Jhanna,” he said aloud. He worked his way out of his brother’s grip, eyes straining for the shattered remnants of the sniper tower.  _ “Jhanna!”  _

He took a few steps, and saw the Discovery had set down on the ridge, and there was a green cruiser slowly making its way towards them, the blue skin of the Omatrans on board standing out sharply in relief. It drew closer until he could finally make out each one - there was Ensign Kharra, Cereth, a few others from the landing party, Klaxor waving at the front and - 

Jhanna was in the back, slumped over to one side. She had a makeshift bandage around one shoulder, and there was a dark trail of blood down her cheek from a head wound. Her eyes were closed. He held his breath for a moment. Surely if she was - they wouldn’t just - 

She winced, took a deep breath, and opened her eyes, shading them from the sun with her good arm. 

Don’s breath caught in his throat and without permission, his feet began to move. Raph caught him by the arm. 

“Easy, loverboy,” he smirked. “They’ll get here when they get here.” 

Waiting was torture, but the cruiser eventually did pull up, and slowly sink to the sand with a whine. Klaxxor flung herself out of the cruiser and ran up to hug Leo as well. Don petted her head distractedly, tuning out the joyful reunion and watching intently as Kharra and Cereth carefully helped Jhanna disembark. 

“Are you alright?” he asked foolishly because of course she wasn’t, she was shot and fell off a guard tower and her shoulder looked funny if he didn’t know any better he’d say it was dislocated and he should - 

Jhanna made eye contact with him, and favored him with a warm smile through the pain, and he felt like he’d been blessed. 

“I’ll be fine,” she said. She glanced down at her shoulder, glanced at the cruiser, and turned to position herself. 

“Wait,” Don said in alarm, stepping closer and reaching out for her on instinct, “I can set that for y- 

With a loud thunk and a subdued snarl of pain, Jhanna shoulder-checked the cruiser and popped her shoulder back into its socket. 

“Sick, dude!” Mikey cried in delighted horror.

“Donnie’s new girlfriend’s a BAMF,” Raph informed Leo conversationally.

“And all _ I  _ got was this lousy poncho,” Leo smirked. 

“Was that a joke, Fearless?” 

“Jhanna,” Don murmured. He didn’t know what else to say. He wanted to embrace her, wanted to ask how she was feeling, what he could do to help. 

Jhanna simply smiled as she walked up to him, and placed a hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. 

He put his hand on top of hers, lost for words. 

“Ensign Kharra,” Jhanna said, releasing him. “Open a channel immediately. Audio and visual.”  

“What frequency, Captain?” 

“All of them,” Jhanna replied grimly, surveying the damage. “Everyone in reach. And a direct line to the Capitol.” 

Jhanna squared her feet, stood to her full height, and adjusted her uniform as best she could with one arm. Ensign Kharra stepped forward and brushed the dust off of her carefully before stepping back. Cereth removed his wrist comm, hit a few buttons, and then held it up facing Jhanna. 

“Are we transmitting?” Jhanna asked.    
  
“We are, Captain.” 

“Citizens of Omatra, and all sentient beings in this quadrant,” Jhanna began firmly. “I am Captain Jhanna of the Omatran Flagship Discovery. I come to you live from B612 with grave news regarding Prime Magisterial Candidate Morriah. The Omatran fleet has just now disrupted an illegal mining operation, manned entirely by slave labor, all reporting directly to Candidate Morriah herself. We believe that Candidate Morriah has been illegally dealing Zenturion crystals to the Triceraton Empire, in direct violation of Omatra’s Neutrality Agreement 1-984, and multiple violations of Campaign Finance Regulations. We have released our coordinates along with this broadcast, and in light of my promotion last year to Ruling Caste, I hereby invoke the ancient Right of Challenge.” 

There was an audible gasp from Cereth, and the device in his grip faltered slightly. Ensign Kharra cleared her throat and he quickly raised it again, his cheeks coloring slightly. 

“I hereby summon Candidate Morriah to stand and do battle, or immediately resign any claim to the Magisterium both now and in perpetuity,” Jhanna continued, her voice steel. “Our Ruling Caste has wallowed in complacency too long while our people suffer. Omatra will not be known as peddlers of death and suffering, will not disgrace ourselves with slavery and pillaging and war profiteering. Candidate Morriah: If you want the Magisterium - you can come and pry it from my cold, dead hands. Jhanna out.”    
  
Jhanna strode immediately out of frame and Cereth hit a few buttons on his communicator before lowering it nervously. 

“So...when you say…  _ ‘stand and do battle…’”  _ Mikey began nervously.

“I’m more stuck on  _ ‘cold dead hands,’” _ Klaxor added, wringing hers together.

“Captain,” Ensign Kharra said coolly. “Do you fully understand what you have just done?” 

“Yes,” Jhanna replied stiffly. For just a moment, she didn’t look as powerful as she usually looked to Don...she looked tired. And maybe, a little sad. 

“I see,” Ensign Kharra said crisply. “Then I have no other choice.” 

She reached forward, and with a loud rip, tore the epaulette off of Jhanna’s uniform. 

“Wait!” Don cried. “What are you doing?!” 

“Captain Jhanna,” Ensign Kharra said in a robotic, emotionless voice. “I hereby deem you unfit for duty, release you from service, and assume command of the Discovery until such time as you will face judgment from a military tribunal under Military Code C, Section 87.” 

“What?!” Raph sputtered. 

“How could you?!” Don’s fingers were itching for his bo. “She - 

He was stopped in his tracks as Jhanna held up a hand and placed it firmly on his chest, wincing painfully as her shoulder moved.

“Acknowledged,” she said, stepping forward calmly. Her stony features melted into a soft smile, and she opened her arms. Ensign Kharra stepped into them stiffly, and embraced her back. 

“I...don’t get it,” Mikey said nervously tugging on Leo’s arm. “What am I missing?”

“I don’t get it either Mikey,” Leo admitted. 

“Oh good,” Mikey said. “I was worried it was me.”    
  
Jhanna stepped out of the embrace, and Ensign Kharra ran a hand over her braids in an unexpectedly tender gesture. 

“No mercy,” she said warmly.

“No quarter,” Jhanna promised. She turned to Don, and smiling, placed her good hand on the side of his cheek. 

“Donatello. Thank you. Without you, I never would have discovered the truth of this place.” 

“Jhanna...what is going on?” Don asked, taking her hand in his and gripping it tightly. “Please, whatever it is, let us help you, we can - 

“It is not your fight,” Jhanna said, firmly. “I must do this alone.” 

“Please,” Don pleaded, “You’re not in any condition to be fighting, I mean, can’t this Morriah person just be arrested or something?!”

“This is our way,” Jhanna said simply. “You do not understand because you are not Omatran.”

“But - 

“You have found your family,” Jhanna smiled, looking over at Mikey, Raph, and Leo. “I am glad.” 

Don didn’t know what else to say, so he just looked at Jhanna’s beautiful face, longing to kiss her. 

“I am very glad I met you, Donatello from Earth.” 

“Jhanna,” he whispered, daring to reach up and glide his hand over her braids as he saw Kharra do earlier. To his surprise, Jhanna smiled and allowed it. 

“When the fighting begins,” she said firmly, “you are not to interfere.” 

“I want to help,” Don insisted. 

“She and I must face one another alone. But Morriah does not favor a fair fight...so, if others try to join the attack, you have my permission to stop them. But that is all.”

“You have my bo,” Don swore, giving her hand another squeeze. 

“And my axe!” Mikey cried. 

Don and Jhanna looked over quizzically.

“Sorry,” Mike sputtered. “I mean, how often do you get the chance to  _ actually  _ say that in context?”  

“We’ll make sure it stays a fair fight,” Leo promised. 

Jhanna smiled and nodded in gratitude. 

“Cap - ” Cereth interrupted, looking at his communicator again. “Err, I mean...Ensign Kharra. The Discovery reports transmission received by seven surrounding planets, and the Omatran High Council. Signal has been archived and is being re-broadcast to all surrounding systems. Incoming response from Candidate Morriah. Do you want it on screen?”

“Just audio is fine,” Jhanna said wearily. Ensign Kharra nodded at Cereth.

“This is Prime Magisterial Candidate Morriah, responding to  _ Captain _ Jhanna.”   
  
Perhaps it was only that he knew her to be a literal slave driver, or that he knew her to be Jhanna’s mortal enemy, but the sound of Morriah’s voice immediately made Don’s hackles rise. It was oily and superior, drenched with disdain.   
  
“These allegations, of course, are nothing but a vile, last-minute smear campaign against myself and my family from a social-climbing pretender. I accept your ridiculous challenge. Death comes for you within the hour - await my coming. Morriah out.” 

“Within the hour?” Ensign Kharra blanched. “I thought it’d take her at least a week to get here. You don’t think?”

“There were rumors the Triceratons had a transmat device,” Jhanna replied simply. “They must have one on-world.” 

“Oh! That thing?” Mikey supplied. “Yeah, the big round platform thingie, it’s like a teleporter, kinda. It’s in a barn a few buildings down from the bar. But I thought it was broken? Right?” 

He turned to address one of the Triceraton guards, who was still waiting on his knees with his hands behind his head, under careful guard by a knot of mauve bug-people.

“Remember? I asked if I could maybe use it to get home and you guys told me it...it was…”

The Triceraton guard looked guiltily down at the sand.

“Oh, you guys are  _ dicks!” _ Mikey cried, wounded.    
  
Raph carefully placed his face in his palm. 

“Donatello,” Jhanna said calmly. “You and your brothers please help these people to safety, and bring the rest up from the mines. Ensign Kharra - I suggest you and Cereth throw these scum in the brig. This mine will make as good an arena as any. Clear the bodies and assemble the weaponry. Since I issued the challenge, Morriah gets first choice.” 

“Your shoulder,” Kharra began.

“Will be fine,” Jhanna interrupted evenly. “Pain is irrelevant. Whether I am victorious or not - after the battle, after Donatello and his brothers go home - the transmat must be destroyed. It is too dangerous in the hands of the Triceraton Empire.” 

“It will be done,” Kharra swore. 

“Let me get a better binding for that shoulder,” Cereth said, walking towards the cruiser. “And I can give you an injection that will reduce the pain and swelling…” 

The others sprang into motion, calling orders, shifting debris, transferring the prisoners, and breaking the chains of those they had liberated. Don couldn’t seem to move...he and Jhanna stared into each other’s eyes. 

“One way or another,” she finally said. “This will soon be over.” 

Don didn’t know how to feel about that, because that meant she would either be dead, or the new Prime Magistrate of Omatra and either way, they were heading home and would never see her again. 

“Please be safe,” he finally managed to say hoarsely.

Jhanna’s grim expression slowly turned to a mischievous smile.

“No. But I will be victorious.” 

Suddenly, she stepped forward, closing the distance between them. Don’s eyes widened but before he could say anything, she was tilting his chin up, and her lips met his. Don’s eyes slowly closed as he wrapped his arms around her and kissed back passionately, no longer caring who was watching. 

“Why the sudden change of heart?” he asked dazedly, when they finally parted. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“I’m no longer a Fleet Captain,” Jhanna replied, with a sad smile. “Soon, I will either be dead or Prime Magistrate. But for the next hour at least, I am free. For the next hour, I can do as I wish. And this...this is what I wish.” 

Don pulled her close again, being careful of her shoulder, and breathed in her scent. “Me too.” 

“Go,” Jhanna insisted, pushing him away after far too brief an embrace. “Help your brothers. I must prepare for battle.” 

Don nodded. 

“Be victorious, Jhanna.”

She smiled fiercely, her teeth gleaming white.

“I swear it.” 


End file.
